https://crimethinc.com/feed CrimethInc. CrimethInc. ex-Workers’ Collective: Your ticket to a world free of charge https://crimethinc.com/assets/icons/icon-600x600-29557d753a75cfd06b42bb2f162a925bb02e0cc3d92c61bed42718abba58775f.png https://crimethinc.com/assets/icons/favicon-efac4460fc49353986831b21650af3dce27f87fa1fa8636d3ea0e858382ae449.ico CrimethInc. Ex-Workers Collective help@crimethinc.com https://crimethinc.com/2024/03/14/it-was-not-an-unexpected-death-an-account-from-the-opioid-epidemic 2024-03-14T18:08:05Z 2024-03-18T17:52:35Z “It Was Not an Unexpected Death” : An Account from the Opioid Epidemic A personal account from the opioid epidemic. <figure><img class="u-photo" alt="" src="https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2024/03/14/header.jpg" /></figure> <p>Starting in 2021, drug overdoses have killed more than 100,000 people in the United States every year. While politicians used the crack and heroin epidemics of the late twentieth century as a pretext to introduce mass incarceration, mandatory minimum sentencing, three-strikes laws, and racial profiling, all of which disproportionately targeted Black and brown people, so many white people have died of overdoses over the past decade that the rhetoric around the opioid epidemic <a href="https://crimethinc.com/2017/10/09/the-opioid-crisis-how-white-despair-poses-a-threat-to-people-of-color">has changed dramatically</a>. Today, even racist conservatives acknowledge the opioid epidemic as a social crisis—but how to address it remains an open question.</p> <p>Anarchists fight against the conditions that give rise to drug addiction, the ways that the authorities take advantage of addiction to inflict additional damage on communities, and also against addiction itself. In the following reflection, <a href="https://theanarchistlibrary.org/category/author/angustia-celeste">Angustia Celeste</a> revisits harm reduction strategies through the lens of personal tragedy and grief.</p> <p><em>Art by <a href="https://renayehuda.com/">Rena Yehuda Newman</a>.</em></p> <hr /> <h1 id="it-was-not-an-unexpected-death">It Was Not an Unexpected Death</h1> <p>When my best friend died of a fentanyl overdose seven years ago, it was not an unexpected death. It was the statistically probable outcome of her seventeen-year-long struggle with addiction, given the increasingly fatal turn of the opioid crisis.</p> <p>In our youth, she and I imagined ourselves living outside of societal norms, but with her death, she landed solidly in the middle of the bell curve.</p> <p>The fact that I had anticipated this did not soften the grief. There are recriminations and shortcomings that you only add up in hindsight. Once I finished considering what actions I might have taken to try to shift the course of events, or at least to take advantage of our time together—something that, in our youth, I had imagined to be infinite—I began to reflect on what the collective “we” did and did not do. I eventually arrived at the truth that my loss was not just an individual one: it was generational, determined by forces greater than those I initially considered in my despair.</p> <p>I have a certain familiarity with death, both personally and professionally. Someone I care about has died every few years since I was thirteen. Yet grief is something that gets harder with each turn, not easier. This loss cuts back decades into my foundling years, as my friend played a significant role in crafting my worldview when we were teenagers.</p> <hr /> <h1 id="antecedence">Antecedence</h1> <figure class="portrait"> <img src="https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2024/03/14/4.jpg" /> </figure> <p>Before I was politicized, she helped me find comfort in the existentialists and the artistic nihilism/hedonism of the Beat generation. Jettisoning the certainty of a higher power for the unknown abyss of human potential made sense to me. With no predetermined destiny, we were to live out our lives in trajectories of our own design. Success, failure, and how we realized our potential were not determined by any deity, but by the opportunities and oppression of our society. This was a different kind of social determinism. It was freeing because of my own privilege, and terrifying because it did not offer the comforting certainty of any specific outcome.</p> <p>At her memorial, her father put out an archival display of her journals. With horror, I watched our friends and family read very private things about our adolescence. The discomfort was my own—I think she probably would have approved. Her family, to their great credit, had been forthright and honest about her death. Her obituary began poetically with the words, “Succumbed to addiction at 35.”</p> <p>Her father, clearly still struggling with the loss, pulled me aside and asked me for the origin story of her addiction.</p> <p>I told him what I could about when we started using heroin, but I did not touch upon why. He wanted to know about the why. Why had we felt so untouchable? Why hadn’t we known it was dangerous? There is a certain cruelty to such questions asked decades after the fact.</p> <p>I know that we started something that became a bleak mythos and, eventually, a death cult. It began when I was thirteen, she was fifteen, and it was all theoretical: the dark literary proclivities, romanticizing the edges of human experience, the search for the profane and the ecstatic. It was initially a joyous endeavor, an exploration of the unknown, not a doubling down on pain—not at first.</p> <p>I was struck by two things at her father’s question. First, I was all of nineteen when we began using heroin, and there were many things I had not known about addiction. Second, I had known that I didn’t want to feel anything, and narcotics were a method available to me to achieve episodic negation.</p> <hr /> <h1 id="negation">Negation</h1> <figure class="portrait"> <img src="https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2024/03/14/1.jpg" /> </figure> <p>As to why I didn’t want to feel anything, without delving into traumatic experiences, I think the ways that we are taught to avoid pain in Western society are deeply damaging. The antidepressants and antipsychotics are intended to achieve a dampening of both the dark and the light, the highs and the lows—evening out life’s extremes to an acceptable middle ground.</p> <p>Put on medication at thirteen, I learned to seek balance by using a cocktail of neurochemical inputs to manage my internal emotional life. Homeostasis wasn’t something you created by intentional practice in the external world; it was something chemically concocted from within. These drugs did quiet my mind for a few years. They also taught me that the way to deal with pain was to seek a state of hazy indifference. The things happening to me didn’t matter if I didn’t feel their full impact.</p> <p>Heroin was a reasonable transition between psychotropic drugs and the more varied coping mechanisms I would learn in my mid-twenties. It is a method of dealing with pain that creates more harm, but also provides some emotional reprieve if you are in a very dark place. I don’t regret my use, but I was insulated from the worst consequences of it by class and race privilege. Conversations about drug use must include bodily autonomy, while also addressing the failings of negation as a long-term redress for trauma.</p> <p>I quit using heroin at twenty-one after I became politicized and was able to contextualize my pain within a larger societal framework. I discovered perspective. Movement work made me feel less alone, and I found reasons to live beyond myself. Organizing helped me develop coping mechanisms and skill sets I had not had as a teenager.</p> <p>Admittedly, I drew the long straw. I was lucky. This fortune was something that became increasingly apparent to me as I began to work at the needle exchange. If I didn’t know the dangers at nineteen, I had certainly discovered them by twenty-one. When I grew tired of being party to the extreme harm I was facilitating for the friends I used with, I stopped injecting.</p> <p>At that same time, her father used to drive into the city to get suboxone that I had purchased off the black market to help her taper her use. Thus began the next period of trial and error, of bearing witness, the next decade of harm reduction. She never quit for very long, but I won’t say that we failed. We achieved something together—we lengthened her life. Only she could define the meaning of that.</p> <p>But I understand now, in a way I didn’t before, the limitations of our approach.</p> <hr /> <h1 id="harm">Harm</h1> <figure class="portrait"> <img src="https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2024/03/14/7.jpg" /> </figure> <p>In the early 2000s, we wanted to propagate the idea that IV drug use didn’t have to be a death sentence if you used clean needles, if someone showed you how to administer Narcan and you kept some at hand. We thought that if you met people where they were at, if you provided a space to discuss addiction that didn’t require abstinence, you could provide people with an eventual exit. If you got lucky, if your source was pure and your practices rigorous, you might be allotted the time you needed to really get clean one day.</p> <p>It’s not that people didn’t overdose back then—they did. We had friends that died, but not at anywhere near the current rates.</p> <p>Not everything had fucking fentanyl in it. Xylazine had not yet made an appearance. It was possible to pretend that in a few years, one might not need today’s crutch. Time provided us with tentative hope that with compassionate services, understanding friends, and a bit of breathing room it could be possible to figure out how to move past mere survival.</p> <p>I eventually quit social work for sex work, and then, after a decade, I left that for the medical field. These various professions share a common labor: taking on other’s suffering. I have been party to many confessions and come to understand the myriad ways people try to survive our bleak consumer culture.</p> <p>To maintain trauma stewardship, you have to cultivate a certain emotional distance, and this distance is perceptible in the dynamics that emerge within even the most horizontal solidarity model. Distance is all good and fine when the support you are offering is solely material—but what happens when the support people need is emotional?</p> <p>Don’t get me wrong, material support is important. Thankfully, there are still needle exchanges, there are now fentanyl/xylazine test strips, there is suboxone to manage your use, and if you are fortunate, you might live somewhere where there is a monitored safe injection site. If you are especially lucky, you might even live somewhere that offers legal “<a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/opioids/responding-canada-opioid-crisis/safer-supply.html">safer supply</a>.” Methadone treatment is one of the better ways to manage opioid use nowadays (though recent <a href="https://www.crackdownpod.com/episodes/w80s11lunxcqg2evgcz7d71h3j4sjr">formulary changes</a> have left many who rely on it struggling with relapse, as highlighted in the podcast <a href="https://www.crackdownpod.com/about">Crackdown</a>.)</p> <p>I support all these interventions. But I also have to say that—if the goal is living and not just surviving—they don’t really get to the heart of the matter.</p> <p>Harm reduction begs a question that it often does not address. Why do so many people feel indifferent about being alive? Meeting people where they’re at doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try to discuss and change their emotional and spiritual position, if you can. Discussing the insanity of negation is not being judgmental, it’s just being honest.</p> <hr /> <h1 id="lethe">Lethe</h1> <figure class="portrait"> <img src="https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2024/03/14/8.jpg" /> </figure> <p>There is a cult of death that revolves around the hopeless cycle of addiction—and that spiraling trajectory is not as long as it used to be. Statistically, if you are using, even with test strips, even with clean needles, even with Narcan, even with management of use via suboxone, you are <a href="https://americanaddictioncenters.org/blog/long-term-effects-drug-abuse">courting death</a>. It is this drive to oblivion that I want to discuss.</p> <p>In the other kinds of solidarity work I do, the desire to survive is very strong. It compels people to cross continents, to leave everything they know just to find a safer place to be. It is not as difficult to reach out in solidarity to people who desperately want to live. However, it is difficult to do so across the river Lethe, the river in Hades that the dead drink from to forget.</p> <p><em>I am the way into the city of woe</em><br /> <em>I am the way to a forsaken people</em><br /> <em>I am the way into eternal sorrow</em></p> <p>One of us wrote those words in a letter during a second period class at some point in the mid-1990s when we didn’t yet know how lost we would become and the ways we would abandon one another along the way.</p> <p>I am touched both by how melodramatic we were, writing derivations of Dante’s <em>Inferno</em> to each other, and how deeply we felt, already, the suffering of the world. She did not dismiss the fundamental questions and ethical qualms I felt about human nature and the darkness of society. She was the first person, outside of my immediate family, to take my internal emotional life seriously and cultivate my intellectual proclivities.</p> <p>When I really pause to consider that, it takes my breath away. That intimacy was hard to maintain through the years because it is hard to reach out to those mired in addiction, the trajectory of the illness is ever inward. In my early thirties I hit an emotional wall; I could no longer meet her where she was at anymore. I had tried, and it hadn’t worked.</p> <hr /> <h1 id="cessation">Cessation</h1> <figure class="portrait"> <img src="https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2024/03/14/5.jpg" /> </figure> <p>I remember the day our friendship ended. She probably didn’t realize it at the time, or perhaps ever, but that day was our last chance to renew that bond, to strengthen ties, to find a reason to be in one another’s lives in a meaningful way. We were in the same city for once and made plans to meet up for lunch. I took time off between seeing high-end clients downtown and sat in that diner for two and a half hours waiting. I figured she was using again, although she didn’t say. I figured she was trying to cop, and it was taking longer than expected, but she didn’t let me know why she was running late or if she was coming at all.</p> <p>I couldn’t linger any longer over coffee wondering about the state of our friendship. As far as I could tell from our correspondence, she didn’t remember anything about my life anymore, where I lived, how things were with my kids and chosen family, what I was working on politically. She wasn’t present. She was wrapped up in mythos about heroin, art, literature, and aestheticism, and there was a level of self-involvement and dis-ease that had become bleakly narcissistic.</p> <p>I left the café. When I got to the train platform, I saw that she had finally texted. She had arrived three hours late. That was my moment, my opportunity to forgive, reach out and make amends for all the things we hadn’t said to one another, all the things we hadn’t done. But I was angry, angry about the last couple years, about the shambles of our connection, about how selfish her addiction had made her. I was exhausted by cumulative losses and I couldn’t continue to invest in people in my life who didn’t reciprocate. I didn’t text back.</p> <p>I still saw her father, mother, and brother on occasion, because I coparent with her cousin. I continued to get news of her life, but we never saw each other or spoke again. Five years later, she died, without our ever speaking about what had ended our friendship. Death became the final arbiter of our conflict. I was left to argue with myself about the rightness of the choices I had made.</p> <p>I was being protective of my time, my energy, and my heart. But I was wrong. The continuation of our friendship probably wouldn’t have changed the outcome, but I missed those last five years. I never got to hear her version of things. We didn’t correspond, we didn’t share stories about our lovers, travels, writing, or artistic endeavors. Knowing I would lose her and she couldn’t be present, I gave nothing more and I got even less. It didn’t soften the loss when she died—it only made the grief worse. I couldn’t say I had done everything I could have, because I hadn’t.</p> <p>I guess I imagined, until the day I got that phone call, that we would reconnect one day when she figured out how to get clean without me. That was the ultimate failure of my harm reduction practice, my empathy and my earthly obligation. I took the symptoms of her addiction personally, let them drain me dry, estrange us. Someone I loved had been in pain, and I had turned away.</p> <hr /> <h1 id="loss">Loss</h1> <figure class=""> <img src="https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2024/03/14/9.jpg" /> </figure> <p>It is said that no one gets clean until they themselves are ready. But this saying leaves out something essential. Love, family, friends, and social connections all provide a positive impetus towards the desire to be present, to live life, to bear the cost of trauma. These tendrils connected to our heart and soul make suffering worth it. These are the things people find reasons to live for.</p> <p>She died alone, on her knees in the bathroom of her apartment in New Orleans, kit in hand, after breaking out of the DIY arrangements she had made to be locked alone in a client’s apartment to get sober. She died, like so many, trying to get clean and relapsing. The drugs she got that day were stronger than her tolerance allowed for. There was no poetic gesture, no allegorical final words. Examining the record she left behind, it seems that her last twenty-four hours were scary, haggard, hallucinatory, and dark, filled with suffering, a desire for a reprieve, and one final go at numbness.</p> <p>A few years later, her partner also fatally overdosed. When I heard about his passing, it seemed to me that soon there would be no one left to remember their life together. I thought I had come to terms with the brevity of our time upon this earth, but I hadn’t.</p> <hr /> <h1 id="amnesia">Amnesia</h1> <figure class="portrait"> <img src="https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2024/03/14/3.jpg" /> </figure> <p>A few times a month, when I worked the ER, I would cut someone’s homemade tourniquet off, rouse them from unconsciousness with Narcan, and wait. Wait for them to come around, wait for them to wake up, pensive and sorrowful or angry and resentful. Wait for them to inevitably tear out their IV and leave against medical advice. Or, even more depressing, they would try to leave with it in, which we didn’t accommodate. I always tried to talk people into staying to get IV antibiotics if they had abscesses, so that those won’t become septic. I would try to talk people into chatting with a social worker to see if we could connect them with rehabilitation services.</p> <p>Every shift, I encountered people who had been conditioned to treat all kinds of suffering with opioids and now found that their doctors were unwilling to renew their pain medication. The rehab facilities only had so many spaces, the pain clinics even fewer. The pendulum has swung back and there is an entirely new generation of providers who don’t consider the consequences of the flawed treatment modalities of the last twenty years to be their responsibility.</p> <p>The Department of Health and Human Services has had to release <a href="https://public3.pagefreezer.com/browse/HHS.gov/16-09-2020T14:35/https://www.hhs.gov/opioids/treatment/clinicians-guide-opioid-dosage-reduction/index.html">best practice guidelines</a> for tapering high-dose chronic pain patients because doctors, fearing professional sanction from licensing boards, are cutting people off in unsafe ways. I try to remind providers of the historical trajectory that got us here, pointing out that commodifying suffering in this particular manner reaped fiscal rewards for those in power and that this has been the cost. Richard Sackler of Purdue Pharma, who brought us OxyContin, has now been <a href="https://www.narconon-suncoast.org/blog/sackler-of-purdue-pharma-gets-patent-for-opioid-addiction-medication.html#:~:text=Dr.%20Sackler%20was%20granted%20a%20patent%20on%20a,addicts%20some%20sort%20of%20shot%20at%20getting%20clean.">given approval for a patent</a> for a new form of suboxone to be used for the treatment of opioid addiction. His family is expected to pay <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/03/10/1085174528/sackler-opioid-victims">roughly $6 billion dollars</a> in a bankruptcy settlement in exchange for immunity from future opioid lawsuits. Slickly marketed <a href="https://narcan.com/">nasal spray Narcan</a> sells over the counter for $45 a dose, despite research showing that Narcan costs less than <a href="https://www.statnews.com/2023/04/17/otc-narcan-naloxone-price-availability/#:~:text=Like%20Evzio%2C%20profiteering%20has%20long,public%20investment%20through%20the%20NIH.">5 cents</a> to manufacture and exposing unethical profiteering. They’ve found a way to profit on both the illness and the cure—on both the living and the dead.</p> <p>Many of my critical care colleagues don’t acknowledge these larger trends. When I have to, I reprimand them for their tendency to blame people for their own suffering. It is an uphill battle. We do not create spaces that are free of judgment—the emergency room is full of judgment. What is the point of saving people’s lives only to continue to burden them with stigma? Stigma still kills.</p> <p>I’ve since quit the ER, after witnessing too much death during the pandemic, and now I run a community-based free clinic that embraces harm reduction. So, it seems, harm reduction still has a place in my life. I don’t want to abandon it, I just want to change its cadence.</p> <p>The treatment landscapes haven’t changed all that much. I always used to wonder what the point of having an accepting users’ group at the exchange, when all of the rehab programs we referred people to were rigid and abstinence-only. We need a way to articulate sobriety as a good goal without being moralizing or punitive about it.</p> <p>If trauma is the gateway drug to addiction, then treatment modalities that deal with the body’s inherent sympathetic and parasympathetic response to trauma should be part of treatment. I don’t have a clear vision of a way forward, but I recommend somatic therapies over talk therapy because treatment based on trauma response and physical recalibration makes sense to me.</p> <p>I want us to talk more openly about death. Not in a harsh or insensitive way, not to shock or judge or scare people. We must not spiritually anchor our labors in darkness. But we also can’t take a neutral approach to the kinds of addiction that are a passive form of suicidal ideation, statistically speaking.</p> <p>How do you qualify a death wish? Given the changing molecular structure of what you can purchase on the streets these days, can we agree that the opioids now in circulation will generally not give their user enough time to shift course? Expanding services for suboxone scripts is offering some hope to buy more time, to help people safely manage their use. But I still maintain that IV drug use is not a choice we should easily accommodate without other services. The ultimate destination for all our labors should be health—better health and a life you can show up for. Why stigmatize the symptoms and not address the real issues at hand? Housing, dignified work, social connections, a relationship to the earth—these should be the aspirations of our practice.</p> <p>It is not enough to use clean needles, it is not enough to offer fentanyl/xylazine test strips, it is not enough to help manage use with suboxone, it’s not enough to provide medical supervision for maladaptive coping. Ultimately, if we don’t address the profound alienation at the heart of the capitalist system, we will be hard-pressed to convince those we love that life is indeed worth living, and worth being present for.</p> <p>I remind myself every morning now, even on those mornings I would rather not wake up, that we make our amends through our actions. We reach for our highest aspirations by examining our failures. I do not think I could have brought her more clean needles; she knew where to get them. I do not think I could have bought her more suboxone, suggested a better rehab, or coordinated a plan for intervention more clearly with those who also struggled for her. We attempted some combination of all those things, however imperfectly. But there were conversations we didn’t have.</p> <hr /> <h1 id="absolution">Absolution</h1> <figure class="portrait"> <img src="https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2024/03/14/2.jpg" /> </figure> <p>I think our mistake came years before, in the way we tried to delineate our feelings of difference. A life lived in defiance of norms once seemed holy to me, but somewhere in the process of jettisoning conventions and differentiating our path we ventured so far off track that we got lost. Whatever the punk gods of our youth told us, self-destruction isn’t disruptive to the social fabric—it has been co-opted. We’ve been sold. There are many things about this carceral society worth resisting, but numbing the pain keeps us far from that struggle. My friend never made it to any place of social conflict because she lost the battle with herself years before.</p> <hr /> <h1 id="forgiveness">Forgiveness</h1> <figure class="portrait"> <img src="https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2024/03/14/6.jpg" /> </figure> <p>I forgive my thirteen-year-old self for my romantic delusions. I forgive my nineteen-year-old self for my destructive habits. I forgive my twenty-one-year-old self for my naïve belief in harm reduction practices that never got us closer to health, that just kept us treading water. The only thing I do not forgive myself for is walking away.</p> <p>I should not have stepped off the platform and onto that train. I should have turned around, gone back to the café and told her that I wanted her in my life. I should have told her that I loved her, not the easy comforting kind of love, but the kind you suffer for, the kind that makes living worthwhile. Then, even if I had lost her later anyway, I wouldn’t have lost so much of myself.</p> <hr /> <p><em>You can reach Angustia Celeste <a href="mailto:thebrokenteapot@riseup.net">here</a>.</em></p> https://crimethinc.com/2024/03/08/germany-the-fight-against-the-tesla-gigafactory-some-occupy-the-forest-some-shut-down-the-power-grid 2024-03-08T23:11:35Z 2024-03-13T09:07:39Z Germany: The Fight against the Tesla Gigafactory : Some Occupy the Forest, Some Shut Down the Power Grid An interview with forest occupiers resisting the expansion of a Tesla factory and a translation of a statement by a group that shut down the power grid serving it. <figure><img class="u-photo" alt="" src="https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2024/03/08/header.jpg" /></figure> <p>For several years now, locals, anarchists, environmentalists, and others have been engaged in a struggle against a Tesla “gigafactory” in the small town of Grünheide, only five kilometers southeast of Berlin. This is the biggest factory producing electric cars for Tesla in all of Europe. Many important issues converge in this conflict: the struggle between global capitalism and local ecosystems, the question of what counts as “sustainable” and who gets to define it, the power that billionaires like Elon Musk have acquired and are using to <a href="https://crimethinc.com/2022/10/28/the-billionaire-and-the-anarchists-tracing-twitter-from-its-roots-as-a-protest-tool-to-elon-musks-acquisition">reshape</a> our society in line with their authoritarian vision.</p> <p>Four years ago, the government of Brandenburg overruled popular opposition to permit Tesla to destroy a forest in order to build the factory. Now, Tesla is seeking to expand the facility at further cost to local forest and groundwater. Two weeks ago, a majority of residents of Grünheide <a href="https://taz.de/Buergerbefragung-zur-Werkserweiterung/!5993733/">voted against</a> Tesla’s proposed expansion.<sup id="fnref:8" role="doc-noteref"><a href="#fn:8" class="footnote" rel="footnote">1</a></sup> According to the law, however, the final decision is up to politicians, not the locals.</p> <p>Shortly after the vote, activists established an occupation in the forest that is to be destroyed to make way for the factory expansion. A hundred people are now occupying the trees with a variety of structures. Thus far, the police have observed them but have yet to undertake an eviction.</p> <p>On the morning of March 5, 2024, a power pylon caught fire near Steinfurt, directly south of the Tesla gigafactory in Brandenburg. The act of sabotage temporarily cut off electricity to thousands of households in various parts of Berlin. It also halted work at the Tesla factory for at least a week, likely costing the company <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/germany-sabotage-case-launched-against-tesla-protesters/a-68467844">hundreds of millions of euros</a>.</p> <p>A communiqué appeared claiming responsibility in the name of <em>Vulkangruppe</em>—“Volcano Group”—a clandestine anarchist group <a href="https://www.tagesschau.de/inland/regional/brandenburg/vulkangruppe-100.html">said</a> to have been active since 2011. The group has claimed credit for burning a power cable in Berlin-Charlottenburg in 2018 and cutting the power supply to the Tesla factory construction site in Grünheide in 2021, among other actions.</p> <p>Here, we present an interview with a participant in the forest occupation alongside a translation of the communiqué by <em>Vulkangruppe,</em> in order to offer multiple perspectives from the movement against the Tesla gigafactory.</p> <figure class=""> <img src="https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2024/03/08/12.jpg" /> <figcaption> <p>The forest occupation.</p> </figcaption> </figure> <hr /> <h1 id="the-forest-occupation-an-interview">The Forest Occupation: An Interview</h1> <p><em>We conducted the following hasty interview on Friday, March 8, with a participant in the forest occupation Tesla Stoppen.</em></p> <p class="darkgreen"><strong>Explain who is involved and what you are trying to do.</strong></p> <p>There is a lot to say about what we are doing, but to make it short, Tesla wants to expand their gigafactory, which is the biggest factory for electric cars for Tesla in all of Europe, with about a thousand people working there. For this purpose, they want to cut down more forest, because the whole factory is in a forest—or is in what used to be a forest. They cut down a big part of the forest before, to build the first part of the factory, and now Tesla wants to get bigger. That is why we occupied the forest.</p> <p>A lot of different people are involved here. The occupation itself is called <em><a href="https://teslastoppen.noblogs.org/en-GB/">Tesla Stoppen</a>,</em> or “Stop Tesla” in English, but some other groups are also involved, including a bigger group called <em><a href="https://t-den-hahn-abdrehen.org/">Tesla den Hahn Abdrehen</a></em> [“turning off the tap for Tesla”], which involves a lot of other left groups and also some locals. They are organizing demonstrations and court efforts.</p> <p>Also, there was a vote here and they voted against expanding the gigafactory, so the locals are also against this expansion.</p> <p>It’s important to mention that we are not just a forest occupation, we also call ourselves a water occupation, because there is a water protection area where Tesla’s gigafactory is. They are using a lot of water for the factory, and there have been a lot of problems and accidents in the factory, which is harming the groundwater for hundreds of thousands of people.</p> <figure class=""> <img src="https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2024/03/08/5.jpg" /> </figure> <p>In a bigger view, this is a protest against the framing of “green” capitalist growth systems. We are saying “Clean cars are a dirty lie”—it’s not true that they will solve the problems of the climate crisis. Electric cars are an international problem because the batteries of the Tesla cars use materials like lithium and kobalt that come from extractive projects. That is a problem for us because it involves exploitation, it is a neo-colonial way of exploiting the earth and human beings.</p> <p class="darkgreen"><strong>Describe what tactics are involved in this forest occupation.</strong></p> <p>We are occupying the trees by building tree houses, building pathways in the trees. We are living in these tree houses and building to prepare for the state’s attempts to evict us, so that when the police come we can be secure in the tree houses and defend the occupation.</p> <p>When we climb up more than 1.5 meters, German law requires that they need to employ special forces to get us down—and there are not so many special forces or climbing police to do this, which makes it harder for them. We are preparing the tree houses, so that when the police come, we can climb up into them—so that we will have the infrastructure up there, a kitchen, water, everything—so we can stay there for a week.</p> <figure class="portrait"> <img src="https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2024/03/08/10.jpg" /> <figcaption> <p>A house in the trees.</p> </figcaption> </figure> <p>As we do press and social media work, we are trying to be very open and friendly. This is a big campaign with a cooperative design: we are trying to bring people in, to help people to get involved, we are working a lot with locals. There are a lot of things we are trying to do that we learned from occupations and protests at other places, like <a href="https://crimethinc.com/2023/01/19/the-defense-of-lutzerath-a-photoessay-and-poster-documenting-ecological-destruction-and-resistance">Lützerath</a>.</p> <p>The occupation here began at the beginning of last week. As far as tactics go, it might be interesting to know that we came here with 80-100 people, we immediately brought eight platforms and tree houses into the forest at night. That involved a lot of logistics—raising them into the trees and so on. We started our occupation in one night, with eight tree houses—that was a statement, aimed at establishing enough power that we could not be evicted over the following days, because it is not easy to evict eight tree houses with 80-100 people involved.</p> <p>Regarding how we live together, we are trying to organize ourselves in an anarchistic way. So there is a lot of self-organization, we have different groups that organize plenaries and smaller meetings. There is a lot to say about how we live together, how we are trying to get rid of hierarchies, racism, sexism, and so on. It’s about organizing ourselves, being open to new people, and reflecting on the tendencies that we bring with us from society at large.</p> <p>At the moment, things are going well: we have a lot of support, a lot of people are coming here, there is a lot of media attention, a lot of press. We are trying to frame the issue about water as an international climate problem, as a question about who is getting access to water and who is not. So for now, everything is going fine, but a lot of people think that they will try to evict us next week, because we had police come to the forest occupation over the last few days and they filmed everything, took photos—it was special forces who did that.</p> <p>So… we do not think that we are safe yet.</p> <figure class=""> <img src="https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2024/03/08/3.jpg" /> </figure> <p class="darkgreen"><strong>How has the arson attack affected the occupation?</strong></p> <p>About the attack, we just heard about it from the news. For us in the forest, it didn’t change very much. Of course, it changed the framing of some press, some media people, who say “Oh, you are all terrorists,” and of course, there is even more media attention about it… It also changed our press and social media work, because they are trying to say “You are the same, or doing the same, as the people who burned the electrical pylons.” So it’s harder to do the press work, now, but for us in the forest, not so much has changed.</p> <p class="darkgreen"><strong>How does this particular struggle relate to other ecological and anti-capitalist and anti-fascist struggles in Germany right now?</strong></p> <p>In relation to other struggles in Germany, with this occupation, we want to take the next step in the fight for climate justice, because we are trying to bring in water as an issue, and we are trying to debunk the narrative of “green growth,” the idea that electric cars are solving the problem. At the same time, this occupation is related to the anti-fascist movement, because Elon Musk is also part of the fascist problem.</p> <figure class=""> <img src="https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2024/03/08/8.jpg" /> </figure> <p>The point is to get new ideas and take steps towards ending capitalism. Another project that is involved is <a href="https://disrupt-now.org/en/wasistdisrupt/">Disrupt</a>, which is a new idea to organize the radical left. Disrupt, the campaign, is now part of this occupation, so there are a lot of new things to come in Germany and in Europe.</p> <p>And we are getting support from other countries. There will be some people here from <em>Les Soulèvements de la Terre</em> [“Earth Uprisings”] from France visiting us this weekend. We are also trying to support the workers at Tesla, because they have really bad work conditions there and low pay, there are lots of problems when they work there. We are trying to support them, to talk with them.</p> <figure class=""> <img src="https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2024/03/08/4.jpg" /> </figure> <hr /> <h1 id="shut-down-tesla-volcano-group-attack-on-the-power-supply-near-steinfurt">Shut Down Tesla Volcano Group! Attack on the Power Supply near Steinfurt</h1> <p><em>This <a href="https://de.indymedia.org/node/344525">statement</a> appeared on the morning of March 5, shortly after the burning of the electical pylon, though it describes the action as taking place “on the eve” of March 8, International Women’s Day. In German, the name “Elon” sounds similar to the word</em> Elend, <em>which means “misery.” To German readers, the authors’ pun “Elend Musk” throughout the text reads as “Misery Musk.”</em></p> <p>We sabotaged Tesla today. Because Tesla in Grünau gobbles up earth, resources, people, and labor and spits out 6000 SUVs, killer machines, and monster trucks per week. Our gift for March 8 [International Women’s Day] is to shut down Tesla.</p> <p>Because the complete destruction of the Gigafactory and with it the cutting off of “techno-fascists” like Elend Musk is a step on the path to liberation from the patriarchy.</p> <figure class=""> <img src="https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2024/03/08/7.jpg" /> <figcaption> <p>The base of the targeted pylon.</p> </figcaption> </figure> <p>The Gigafactory has become known for its extreme conditions of exploitation. The factory contaminates the groundwater and consumes huge amounts of already scarce drinking water<sup id="fnref:2" role="doc-noteref"><a href="#fn:2" class="footnote" rel="footnote">2</a></sup> to make its products. The state of Brandenburg-Berlin is being dug up for Tesla without any scruples. Critics at the waterworks, local residents, and eco-activists are all being silenced. Figures are being embellished. Laws are being bent. People are being deceived. Nonetheless, a large part of the population around Grünheide rejects the Gigafactory because of water theft and gentrification. Protest and resistance continue unabated. And they are growing, because there is more than one reason for them. In addition to the dirty battery factory, Tesla now wants to expand its factory site by a further 100 hectares, including a freight station.</p> <p>An expansion of the storage and logistics areas directly at the plant (including the possibility of intensive rail logistics) is intended to stabilize the supply chains and production. This is currently impaired because deliveries from the forced labor camps in China cannot take the direct route through the Red Sea. The Brandenburg Ministry of Economic Affairs is eating out of Tesla’s hand, despite many reasons for refusing any approval. Apparently, the only important thing is that Brandenburg flourishes as a thriving business location.</p> <p>Tesla is a symbol of “green” capitalism and a totalitarian technological attack on society. The myth of green growth is just a dirty ideological magic trick to close ranks against domestic criticism. It suggests a way out of the climate catastrophe. But “green capitalism” stands for colonialism, land theft, and an exacerbation of the climate crisis! Lithium batteries come from toxic mines in Chile and use up other rare metals, which means misery and destruction for those who live where the mines are. The battery factory in Grünheide near Berlin, for example, requires the rare raw material lithium, which is also mined in Bolivia. Musk puts his cards on the table when it comes to pushing through lithium mining in Bolivia: “We will coup whoever we want,”<sup id="fnref:3" role="doc-noteref"><a href="#fn:3" class="footnote" rel="footnote">3</a></sup> he says, commenting on Indigenous resistance to mining. Mineral resources are being ripped from the earth under brutal conditions. The “green deal” is merely the expansion of economic growth without limits. In Portugal, too, the rural population is resisting the forced extraction of lithium.<sup id="fnref:4" role="doc-noteref"><a href="#fn:4" class="footnote" rel="footnote">4</a></sup></p> <figure class=""> <img src="https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2024/03/08/15.jpg" /> <figcaption> <p>The burned electrical pylon.</p> </figcaption> </figure> <p>Just as the earth is used and abused on a daily basis, Tesla does the same to people. It has forced laborers all over the world, such as Uyghur people in China, working (to death) for it (just like Volkswagen does<sup id="fnref:5" role="doc-noteref"><a href="#fn:5" class="footnote" rel="footnote">5</a></sup>), whom the racist Chinese regime serves up to the company for its production. Even in Grünheide, the working conditions are considered disastrous. Only recently, a works council member of [the German metalworkers’ union] IG Metall in Grünheide was dismissed. Despite a yellow works council installed by Tesla,<sup id="fnref:1" role="doc-noteref"><a href="#fn:1" class="footnote" rel="footnote">6</a></sup> the truth about the conditions in the factory is leaking out. In order to improve accident statistics, people are taken to hospital by cab instead of by calling an ambulance. Internal critics are fired and if they take legal action, they are forced into a legal settlement. The financial compensation is then used as a muzzle to stifle public discussion about racist dismissals, for example by threatening contractual penalties. The terminated employee has to shut up in return for the money—that’s the calculation.</p> <p>This is what the totalitarian technological attack looks like. A Tesla vehicle is a surveillance device for public spaces. It is equipped all around with high-resolution cameras from Samsung. Samsung is a company that is a leader in weapons technology, among other things. According to the manufacturer, the cameras record up to 250 meters. In “guard mode,” they film everything in the vicinity of the vehicle and guarantee that the driver is also monitored while driving. The driver is already a cost-free component of the Telsa universe and a guinea pig. Artificial intelligence will register every movement and every mistake the driver makes, monetizing these by using the data to train the software for autonomous driving.</p> <p>Tesla is militarizing the road. Its moving tanks are weapons of war. The car as a weapon. The road is the battlefield. Instead of 9mm, Tesla has now introduced 856 hp to the world: “If you’re ever in an argument with another car, you will win,” says Elend Musk.<sup id="fnref:6" role="doc-noteref"><a href="#fn:6" class="footnote" rel="footnote">7</a></sup> A Tesla is a status symbol, at once statement and propaganda: for contempt of humanity, boundless destruction through “progress,” and an imperial, patriarchal way of life.</p> <p>Anyone who buys an SUV is most likely a supporter of an imperial way of life who wants to profit from this madness to the bitter end. Every activist’s secret poetry album should include a wrecked Tesla. No Tesla in the world should be safe from our flaming rage. Every burning Tesla sabotages the imperial way of life and effectively disrupts the ever-tightening network of seamless smart surveillance targeting every expression of human life.</p> <p>Armies use Tesla’s Starlink satellite system in their wars. For example, in Ukraine. Russia’s army also accesses Starlink satellite terminals from other countries to carry out attacks. Likewise, Israel uses the Starlink satellite system to murder people in Gaza. Tesla’s Starlink infrastructure is a military actor. Rolled up like a string of pearls made of garbage, they plow through the sky to make surveillance total.</p> <figure class="portrait"> <img src="https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2024/03/08/11.jpg" /> <figcaption> <p>A banner in the forest reading “Ceasefire now!”</p> </figcaption> </figure> <p>Let’s talk about a man who will crumble to dust, even if he would rather be immortal: Elend Musk. For men like him, the right swear word has not yet been invented to properly describe their arrogance, their contempt for humanity, their antisocial greed for power and recognition.</p> <p>He makes no secret of his chauvinism. His propaganda platform X is the means to an end. This is where he gathers supporters of an imperial way of life. This is where the anti-Semites, anti-feminists, authoritarians, chauvinists, fascists, and supporters of hatred against “foreigners” reassure themselves. This is where they organize themselves with their elitist view of the world and of themselves as a master race. This is where the Aryans of the AfD meet their peers.</p> <figure class=""> <img src="https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2024/03/08/2.jpg" /> <figcaption> <p>A tree house in the forest occupation.</p> </figcaption> </figure> <p>When Elend Musk cheers the anti-feminist and neoliberal president of Argentina<sup id="fnref:7" role="doc-noteref"><a href="#fn:7" class="footnote" rel="footnote">8</a></sup> on X, it is because they are united. They are not bashful about this: they have decided to stand on the side of a deadly masculinism and leave a trail of blood behind them like a man-eating monster.</p> <p>Elend Musk is the new model of neoliberal and patriarchal, neocolonial predatory capitalist for this century, who uses different means than the exploiters before him in the previous century. It is an invasive zeitgeist that uses the self-fabricated economic crises of valorization to tackle the next destruction. He is only following in the prepared brown footsteps of other patriarchal pioneers. In the same way, the “car manufacturer” Henry Ford was an admirer of the Nazis with their “Volkswagen” and their efficient organization of industry. The Volkswagen plant in Wolfsburg was run on the backs of forced laborers. The idea was that every German should be able to get a Volkswagen so they could drive either a car or a tank on the new autobahn. Ford, inspired by the efficiency of German labor organization, transferred the ideas to his empire in the USA. The assault on workers and the economization of exploitation became known as “Fordism.”</p> <figure class=""> <img src="https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2024/03/08/1.jpg" /> <figcaption> <p>A recent protest action against Volkswagen in Wolfsburg.</p> </figcaption> </figure> <p>This included the organization of labor and assembly line work—mass production with simultaneous mass consumption of the car. This model, also known as Taylorism, can be understood as a form of class struggle from above. Today, Elend Musk combines the invasive technological possibilities of our time with his misogynistic world view, patriarchal extremism, and the totalitarian attitude typical of his caste. As a “car manufacturer,” he stands as a revenant [a person who has returned from the dead] in historical tradition. In keeping with the times, he acts as a “techno-fascist.”</p> <p>Instead of scrapping the car on the garbage heap of history and expanding free public transportation, only the driving technology is being changed, from combustion engines to electric motors, in order to preserve individualized transport. The imperial way of life is more economically lucrative.</p> <p>The positions of power allow patriarchal “visionaries” such as Elend Musk to experiment—in the most horrific sense of the word—with the most “advanced” forms of exploitation and with the available resource of “human beings.” To conquer new realms, to advance, uninvited, and to penetrate the earth. Into space, into the sky, into public space, into our heads—the rapist leaves nothing untouched. The neurotechnology company Neuralink aims to link human brains with machines. They are testing on animals in order to learn how to read streams of thought. Just like SpaceX and Tesla, Neuralink is also aiming for a long-term vision in which different people are considered to have different amounts of inherent value. In which certain people are entitled to a better life inside the ecological catastrophe that is already underway.</p> <figure class="portrait"> <img src="https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2024/03/08/9.jpg" /> <figcaption> <p>A scene from the forest occupation.</p> </figcaption> </figure> <p>Even if you are not on X, formerly Twitter, if you are just walking through the public streets, you will still be impacted by this miserable man and his cameras and propaganda. The positions of power enable a permanent encroachment, an invasive relationship towards all life, that can only be stopped by resolute resistance. The “technological progress” of our time provides them, the “techno-fascists,” with a tool of possibilities with which to continue increasing the exploitation and indescribable destruction of our planet.</p> <p>In its abundance of power, this type can sometimes act like a head of state without having been elected. He has the necessary means of production and the “human” resource to make political decisions. This type can buy heads of state or bring parties and politicians to power, even one named Hitler. This type is the mastermind behind the alleged decision-makers of governments. He can impose conditions on states or reduce heads of state to supplicants. The patriarchal system churns out tons of people like this; they strive for the top position because that corresponds to the patriarchal model. They stage coups when things don’t go their way. They are replaceable. Only their power gives them these opportunities—without power, they are just pompous, ridiculous egomaniacs. They have been driving millions of people to their deaths for centuries, destroying nature as if it belonged to them. If we do not destroy the system that produces such egomaniacs, new examples of their kind will emerge. So this is not (only) about Elend Musk—it is also about an imperial way of life that these men are imposing on us. It’s about a showdown between this imperial way of life and freedom for all people.</p> <p>Despite all their concepts about economics, this type of person represents a minority on this planet, a minority that believes that this imperial way of life is the only right one. What is new is that we have passed many of the tipping points that show us the finite nature of this destructive way of life. We are approaching other tipping points at breathtaking speed. Year by year, month by month, day by day.</p> <p>(If all else fails, Elend Musk and a handful of underlings will flee the consequences of this imperial way of life and insult Mars with their presence. But our strong extra-planetary allies are already waiting for him; solar storms will crash his rocket, as they have already done to 30% of the satellites he has put in space before. So we will win.)</p> <figure class=""> <img src="https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2024/03/08/14.jpg" /> <figcaption> <p>A <a href="https://crimethinc.com/2022/12/02/whose-tweets-our-streets-a-new-poster-and-zine-for-an-offline-media-offensive">poster</a> against Elon Musk and the power of billionaires in general, wheatpasted on a street in Pittsburgh in 2022.</p> </figcaption> </figure> <p>Many people still consider this way of life and the supposed wealth associated with it to be natural and desirable. Many people, mistaken and misguided, confuse possessions and material wealth with freedom and happiness. Ignorance, manipulation, and fear have shaped generations of people. We are reduced to work and consumption and degraded to an imperial way of life. This material wealth at the expense of other people is an indictment of “civilization.” This way of life does not make its beneficiaries happy either. The alternatives are made invisible or destroyed as they emerge. Approaches that could benefit humanity without generating money or power are delegitimized. Indigenous ways of life that relate to nature and its protection are being wiped out. Emancipatory approaches that address the roots of the problem have been drowned in blood in all eras. Or revolutionary movements are corrupted, infiltrated, their “leaders” bought in order to secure domination and the progress of destruction for decades more.</p> <p>Consequently, on the eve of March 8th, we lit a beacon against capital, patriarchy, colonialism, and Tesla. We counter the ongoing abuse of the earth with sabotage. The ideology of limitless economic growth and belief in progress based on destruction have reached their end. All obstacles are being rolled aside for giants like Tesla in order to make Europe a “first-class investment location with a strong industrial ecosystem.” But something is slipping. We, a broad and colorful resistance, are rolling the obstacles back into place. We are the heaps of rubble and grains of sand in the gears of a machine that is stamping forward inflexibly. We are the disruptive factors in the engine room. We are the desperate and the outcasts. We are middle-class people in Germany or migrants on the run. We can be many people in the forest and in the tree houses and on the street; we can be covert sabotage groups like our own. There could also be people in the gigafactory who will take revenge on their foreman’s machines for the working conditions he forces on them. We can be caught, beaten, humiliated, assaulted, or murdered—but we are in the right. Only violence can keep us down. But we will get up again. And others will come after us.</p> <p>Share this statement. Translate it and send it to other people in the global struggle.</p> <figure class=""> <img src="https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2024/03/08/13.jpg" /> <figcaption> <p>A house in the forest occupation.</p> </figcaption> </figure> <p>With our sabotage, we have set ourselves the goal of inflicting the largest possible blackout at the Gigafactory. We have ruled out endangering our lives and the lives of other people. The shutdown of production in the automotive industry is the beginning of the end of a world of destruction. Our bonfire of liberation was aimed at the system that supplies Tesla with electricity. We wanted to hit the overhead line of a high-voltage pylon in the connection to the underground cables at the waterproof cable sleeves and short-circuit the six 110 kV cables inside it. To do this, we opened the shaft to the cable joints, which were partly under water. We still flambéed the exposed power cables and, in combination with the water, this may have caused a short circuit. Damage to cable joints is often time-consuming and expensive to repair. At the same time, we made the fire large and high, with lots of car tires to weaken the steel structure and cause the mast to become unstable.</p> <p>A steel mast only melts at around 1300 -1500 degrees. As we were working with a heat generation of around 900 degrees, the aim was to change the mechanical properties of the mast. In a load-bearing steel structure, a rapid, large fire that burns at 500 degrees or hotter can cause loss of strength and alter the metal’s stiffness, tensile strength, and elasticity. This can lead to buckling effects, twisting, or deflection. That was our intention.</p> <p>We feel connected to all the people who are fighting around the world and who our words reach.</p> <p>We feel connected to all the people who won’t let Tesla shut them down. If we want to win against giants like Tesla, we need many forms of resistance. Ours is one of many. Unpredictable and diverse, only together can we force the Brandenburg Ministry of Economic Affairs to respect the will of the population.</p> <p>Minister for Economic Affairs Jörg Steinbach (SPD) sees the result of the vote by the residents of Grünheide (71% against the expansion of the Tesla factory site) as nothing more than an important vote. He sees the vote above all as a “healing opportunity,” which means that Tesla has not succeeded in convincing people and the company still has to do its homework in order to divide, buy, cajole, and persuade the population. He does not accept the public’s “no” and is calling on Tesla to soften its stance by May.</p> <p>Everyone is free to be openly or secretly happy about our action. Anyone who feels compelled to distance themselves should ask themselves why? And who stands to gain from that?</p> <p>Together we will bring Tesla to its knees. Switch off for Tesla.</p> <p>Greetings to everyone on the run, in the underground, in prisons, and in the resistance!</p> <p>Love and strength to all Antif@s!</p> <p>Shut down Tesla Volcano Group!</p> <ul> <li>A <a href="https://www.tagesspiegel.de/potsdam/brandenburg/linksextremisten-bekennen-sich-zu-brandanschlag-tesla-chef-nennt-nennt-tater-dummste-oko-terroristen-11313151.html">corporate media report on the action</a></li> </ul> <p>We have been inspired by a number of actions:</p> <ul> <li>“<a href="https://www.antifa-frankfurt.org/2023/09/12/dokumentation-teslas-flambiert/">Switch Off the System of Destruction</a>!” (September 2023)</li> <li>“Climate and anti-war activists for the economic lockdown at Tesla and DB-Tren Maya”—<a href="https://de.indymedia.org/node/179908">action claim</a> and <a href="https://de.indymedia.org/node/180652">further discussion</a> (March 2022)</li> <li>On February 7, 2024 two Teslas in Rummelsburg and on February 8 two Tesla charging stations in Vulkanstraße (!) were <a href="https://switchoff.noblogs.org/post/2024/02/08/fahrzeuge-und-ladestationen-von-tesla-abgefackelt/">set on fire</a>.</li> <li>From Volcano Group: “<a href="https://de.indymedia.org/node/149209">Against the Progress of Destruction, Arson Attack on Power Supply of Tesla Plant in Berlin-Brandenburg</a>” (May 2021)</li> <li>More information on Tesla and surveillance: “Cars as Cameras” page 26, <a href="https://www.anarchistischefoderation.de/autonomes-blaettchen-nr-55/">Autonomes Blättchen</a></li> </ul> <hr /> <figure class="portrait"> <img src="https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2024/03/08/6.jpg" /> </figure> <div class="footnotes" role="doc-endnotes"> <ol> <li id="fn:8" role="doc-endnote"> <p>Over 70 percent of approximately 9200 residents cast votes, 65 percent of them to oppose the expansion plan. <a href="#fnref:8" class="reversefootnote" role="doc-backlink">&#8617;</a></p> </li> <li id="fn:2" role="doc-endnote"> <p>For years, nature conservation groups have objected to the factory on account of its <a href="https://brandenburg.nabu.de/umwelt-und-ressourcen/28745.html">water consumption</a> and the fact that it <a href="https://taz.de/Grenzwertueberschreitungen-im-Abwasser/!5992068/">continually exceeds</a> the legal maximums for releasing nitrogen and phosphorous into the water. <a href="#fnref:2" class="reversefootnote" role="doc-backlink">&#8617;</a></p> </li> <li id="fn:3" role="doc-endnote"> <p>According to <em><a href="https://english.elpais.com/economy-and-business/2022-02-14/how-nations-sitting-on-lithium-reserves-are-handling-the-new-white-gold-rush.html">el País</a>,</em> “In July 2020, a Twitter user confronted Elon Musk, head of leading electric vehicles manufacturer Tesla, claiming that the ‘US organized a coup in Bolivia’ just so that Musk could have access to the country’s lithium. ‘We will coup whoever we want! Deal with it!’ replied the entrepreneur in a tweet that soon disappeared; the only remaining record of it are screenshots in newspaper reports.” <a href="#fnref:3" class="reversefootnote" role="doc-backlink">&#8617;</a></p> </li> <li id="fn:4" role="doc-endnote"> <p>In November 2023, the prime minister of Portugal was forced to <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/portuguese-anti-mining-groups-urge-suspension-lithium-projects-after-pms-2023-11-08/">resign</a> by an investigation into corruption in his administration’s handling of supposedly “green” energy deals. Despite the damage that lithium mining has already wrought in Portugal, new open-pit lithium mines are now planned in the north. <a href="#fnref:4" class="reversefootnote" role="doc-backlink">&#8617;</a></p> </li> <li id="fn:5" role="doc-endnote"> <p>Volswagen has provoked <a href="https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Automobiles/Volkswagen-slammed-by-investors-group-over-forced-Uyghur-labor">several accusations</a> of using forced Uyghur labor in its joint venture with China’s state-owned SAIC Motor company. <a href="#fnref:5" class="reversefootnote" role="doc-backlink">&#8617;</a></p> </li> <li id="fn:1" role="doc-endnote"> <p>A “yellow” union is a labor organization that is dominated by an employer and is therefore not an independent trade union. <a href="#fnref:1" class="reversefootnote" role="doc-backlink">&#8617;</a></p> </li> <li id="fn:6" role="doc-endnote"> <p>The <a href="https://www.aol.com/finance/ever-argument-another-car-win-141725737.html">rest</a> of this pitch is comparably disturbing. <a href="#fnref:6" class="reversefootnote" role="doc-backlink">&#8617;</a></p> </li> <li id="fn:7" role="doc-endnote"> <p><a href="https://crimethinc.com/2023/11/26/back-to-the-future-the-return-of-the-ultraliberal-right-in-argentina">Javier Milei</a>. <a href="#fnref:7" class="reversefootnote" role="doc-backlink">&#8617;</a></p> </li> </ol> </div> https://crimethinc.com/2024/03/07/2023-in-chile-50-years-of-the-military-coup-neoliberal-consolidation-after-the-revolt-of-2019 2024-03-07T20:10:36Z 2024-03-15T14:51:07Z 2023 in Chile: 50 Years of the Military Coup : Neoliberal Consolidation after the Revolt of 2019 Members of the Anarchist Assembly of Biobío trace events in Chile through 2023, chronicling the consequences of the cooptation of the 2019 uprising. <figure><img class="u-photo" alt="" src="https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2024/03/07/header-b.jpg" /></figure> <p>In 2019, an <a href="https://crimethinc.com/2020/10/15/chile-looking-back-on-a-year-of-uprising-what-makes-revolt-spread-and-what-hinders-it">uprising</a> broke out in Chile, wresting control of the streets from police and politicians. Eventually, the authorities managed to redirect this momentum into an effort to replace the constitution, itself a relic of the brutal dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet. The attempt to ratify a constitution more aligned with the values of the demonstrators <a href="https://crimethinc.com/2022/09/20/from-uprising-to-plebiscite-street-victories-electoral-defeats-perspectives-from-chile-on-the-constitutional-plebiscite">failed</a>, however, illustrating the <a href="https://crimethinc.com/2021/05/28/chile-the-hot-potato-changes-hands-but-what-does-victory-for-the-left-mean-for-autonomous-movements">risks</a> of channeling grassroots movements into seeking change through institutional means.</p> <p>As a result, a resurgent right wing has regained the initiative in Chile, while the left politicians who came to power have subordinated themselves to the market and the police. To this day, Chile is governed according to the constitution that was introduced as a consequence of the military coup. In the following <a href="https://lapeste.org/asamblea-anarquista-del-bio-bio-2023-en-chile-50-anos-del-golpe-militar-y-plebiscito-constituyente/">account</a>, members of the Anarchist Assembly of Biobío trace this story through the end of the year 2023, chronicling the consequences of the cooptation of the uprising of 2019.</p> <p>Perhaps the moral of this story is that, rather than simply attempting to reform the ruling institutions, the participants in movements for liberation must understand themselves as the ones who must directly implement the changes they desire.</p> <hr /> <p><em>You can listen to an interview with two members of the Anarchist Assembly of Biobío in the <a href="https://crimethinc.com/podcasts/the-ex-worker/episodes/73">last episode</a> of our <strong>Radio Evasión</strong> podcast series about the Chilean uprising of 2019. We note that former Chilean president <a href="https://crimethinc.com/2024/02/08/theres-no-such-thing-as-a-free-helicopter-ride-on-the-death-of-sebastian-pinera">Sebastián Piñera</a> died in a helicopter accident after the events reviewed below—a case of poetic justice if ever there were one.</em></p> <figure class="portrait"> <img src="https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2024/03/07/2.jpg" /> <figcaption> <p>The river Biobío.</p> </figcaption> </figure> <hr /> <h1 id="in-chile">2023 in Chile</h1> <p>In 2023, Chile observed the fifty-year anniversary of the military coup that changed the history of the country in September 1973, establishing a neoliberal laboratory which has served as a model that is still expanding in various corners of the planet. After half a century, the wounds of the past have not yet healed, as the impunity of many human rights violators continues, the Constitution that was drafted during the dictatorship is still in force, and, consequently, there is no official condemnation of the apologies for state terrorism.</p> <p>In the years preceding the commemoration, the political climate was shaped by the process that opened in 2019 with the popular revolt that shook the country for several weeks—a powerful rejection of the decades of precarization that the neoliberal experiment imposed on the lives of ordinary people. Disenchantment with a political class that has been dedicated to deepening this model since the end of the dictatorship and the return of democracy in 1990 turned into anger that flooded the streets with street violence and clashes with the police and military as never seen before. At the same time, spontaneous assemblies emerged in neighborhoods and communities, discussing the possibilities and experiencing politics and social organization in ways that democracy had never offered.</p> <p>Almost a month after the demonstrations began, the entire political class closed ranks against the insurrection and the political parties signed the <em>Acuerdo por la Paz</em> [“Peace Accord”], which included the participation of the new institutional left represented by Gabriel Boric—a showcase that enabled him to raise his media profile, to make a pact with the elite, and eventually, to be elected president. The <em>Acuerdo</em> committed the state to a process of coming up with a new constitution, which was trumpeted by the political class but simply served to rebuild popular trust in the elite, in the state, and in their institutions, which had been discredited since the beginning of the revolt. At the same time, the population once again suffered massive human rights violations at the hands of the police and military, which inflicted 31 deaths and 11,000 injuries, including eye trauma to 460 people as a result of being attacked by uniformed personnel.</p> <figure class=""> <img src="https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2024/03/07/1.jpg" /> <figcaption> <p>A feminist demonstration in Chile on November 2, 2019, after the first cases during the uprising in which carabineros intentionally inflicted damage on demonstrators’ eyes.</p> </figcaption> </figure> <p>The institutionalization of popular struggles as a consequence of the Peace Accord exacerbated the natural attrition resulting from weeks of street protests and the isolation and containment measures taken against the most radical participants in the revolt. This lowered the temperature of the streets, so that the movement was ultimately buried during the COVID-19 pandemic via state-imposed mobility restrictions.</p> <p>With the military back in control of the streets, the focus of attention shifted back to traditional politics and the elite skillfully channeled the energy of the revolt into the process of drafting a new Constitution as a way out of the crisis. This has made for a turbulent cycle that has involved constitutional plebiscites, electoral campaigns, and presidential elections in less than three years, with two consequences. On the one hand, it has given new life to the political institutions that the revolt called into question. On the other hand, it has generated a deep exhaustion and even boredom with politics and social struggles among the general population.</p> <p>The latter is the consequence of the past three years. In the constitutional plebiscite of October 2020, a majority of 78% voted in favor of drafting a new Constitution. The drafting of a new Constitution was entrusted to a series of constitutional conventions, comprised of representatives elected in May 2021, most of whom were independent of political parties and more or less aligned with the demands expressed in the street. This convention went to work during a presidential campaign in which the left was in favor of the work of the convention and the right was against it. Gabriel Boric won the presidential elections of November 2021. Yet despite campaigning under the banners of revolt and against the traditional political class, it only took a few months in power for him to show his true face, governing alongside the neoliberal parties and continuing the neoliberal model.</p> <figure class=""> <img src="https://www.elciudadano.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/pinera.jpg" /> <figcaption> <p>Sebastián Piñera addressing Chile in 2019, flanked by military officers. From 1973 to today, both the force of the military and the stratagems of democracy have played a role in imposing neoliberal capitalism on the population.</p> </figcaption> </figure> <p>At the same time, the constitutional convention’s work was hampered by media scandals revolving around some of the drafters. The right wing took full advantage of this with a smear campaign, alongside other misreporting and false information, all aimed at infecting the public opinion with fear of the changes proposed by the constitutional convention. Given that lay of the land, the plebiscite vote to decide whether to approve the new constitution was made obligatory for all eligible Chilean voters. This completely changed the scenario and the projected electoral outcomes, resulting in a surprising and overwhelming rejection of the drafted constitution in September 2022.</p> <p>Nevertheless, the process had to continue in order to respect the results of the first plebiscite, which had demanded that Chile must have a new Constitution. That meant that it was necessary to elect a second constitutional convention, but this time in a political climate of resignation and popular exhaustion, manifested by less excitement for independent candidacies among the drafters. This diminished enthusiasm for new political voices enabled the political class to safeguard the participation of traditional parties by fixing certain seats in the constitutional convention for members of congress—previously excluded by voters from the first constitutional convention—to join the drafting process. Consequently, the pro-Pinochet right wing won the elections of May 2023 by a wide margin and began drafting the new constitutional proposal in a situation in which most the population was completely disaffected with the process.</p> <p>September 2023 marked the 50th anniversary of the military coup, in an atmosphere of polarization fostered by the press and, at the same time, widespread popular indifference to the subject as a result of exhaustion with politics in general. In spite of everything, there are still organized groups among the people who held commemorations of the 50th anniversary throughout the country, in a political scenario that still does not close the wounds of the past and in which the worst legacy of the dictatorship—neoliberalism—is still in force.</p> <p>In this environment, the right wing tried to introduce a kind of historical revisionism to whitewash the dictatorship, exemplified by false equivalence that former President Sebastián Piñera made between the military coup of 1973 and the revolt of 2019 on the grounds that they were both moments of democratic breakdown. This explains the reaction of the political class after the revolt and the effort to prevent future revolts by strengthening repressive laws that give more powers to the police. One of these laws is the so-called Easy Trigger Law, which was approved in April and establishes “privileged self-defense”—that is, if a police or military officer uses his service weapon, it will be presumed that it has been “correctly used” when acting in self-defense.</p> <p>This law was followed by the Anti-Tomas Law, which facilitates the evictions of occupied properties and land. It affects thousands of people who must resort to occupying land in order to live, in addition to accentuating the conflict between the state and the Mapuche people seeking to reclaim ancestral lands that have been usurped by landowners and forestry companies. On November 27, three days after the enactment of the Anti-Tomas Law, the Mapuche community Aylla Varela became the first to be evicted after occupying a farm in the commune of Collipulli as part of their claim to these lands.</p> <figure class="portrait"> <img src="https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2024/03/07/3.jpg" /> <figcaption> <p>“Solidarity with the Mapuche people.” A poster from the Anarchist Assembly of Biobío.</p> </figcaption> </figure> <p>On the level of symbolism, the new “progressive” government’s support for the forces of repression was already made clear for all to see when Boric took office and kept on Ricardo Yáñez, who had headed the police responsible for repressing the revolt. Once elected, Boric also shifted his rhetoric: in his electoral campaign, he had harshly targeted former President Piñera, blaming him for his responsibility in the repression during the revolt, but as the months went by, he described him as a “democrat.”</p> <p>The model of neoliberal governance has been updated to become more sophisticated in the field of repression; but this is also accompanied by a modernizing of neoliberal extractivism. Under the new government, extractivism has taken on an apparently more environmentalist aspect, but in reality, the capitalist plundering of the country continues, with new forestry projects, lithium extraction, and green hydrogen plants.</p> <p>The year 2023 concluded with the plebiscite of December 17, in which voters rejected the proposal from the second constitutional convention, the one with a right-wing majority—a proposal at least as bad as the Constitution that has been in force since the dictatorship. This is how the constituent process that the political class had opened in response to the revolt has closed—leaving the impression that here, in the cradle of neoliberalism, everything changed so that everything might remain the same.</p> <p>Anarchist Assembly of Biobío, Chilean region.<br /> January 2024.</p> <figure class="portrait"> <img src="https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2024/03/07/4.jpg" /> </figure> https://crimethinc.com/2024/03/06/germany-in-the-streets-against-fascism-again-an-interview 2024-03-06T22:39:47Z 2024-03-11T17:33:51Z Germany: In the Streets against Fascism, Again : An Interview Anti-fascists explore the recent rise of fascist politics in Germany and the potential of the current street mobilizations against it. <figure><img class="u-photo" alt="" src="https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2024/03/06/header.jpg" /></figure> <p>The far-right party <em>Alternative für Deutschland</em> (“Alternative for Germany,” AfD) has been gaining momentum in German politics since 2017, when they <a href="https://crimethinc.com/2017/10/01/the-rise-of-neo-fascism-in-germany-alternative-fur-deutschland-enters-the-parliament">entered the parliament</a>. On January 10, 2024, the investigative journalism group Correctiv published a report that the previous November, prominent members of the AfD had met with a member of the “Identitarian Movement” (a pan-European fascist and ethno-nationalist party) at a mansion outside Berlin to devise a plot to deport millions of immigrants, including those with German citizenship. This precipitated a <a href="https://apnews.com/article/germany-far-right-protests-extremism-afd-747b80d0865a22679aea02ac3aa7ef75">wave of demonstrations</a> around Germany. In the following translation and interview, German anti-fascists explore the rise of fascist politics in Germany and the potential of the mobilizations against it.</p> <p>Although the initial wave of demonstrations has passed, smaller demonstrations are still taking place, especially in small towns in Saxony. A <a href="https://pirna-ist-bunt.de/">protest</a> is planned in Pirna on March 26, when the first AfD politician will be sworn in as mayor of a town. As fascist parties gain momentum around Europe, it is urgent to draw more people into material efforts to stop them.</p> <p><em>Thanks to <a href="https://www.jannis-grosse.com/">Jannis Grosse</a> for the photographs.</em></p> <figure class=""> <img src="https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2024/03/06/1.jpg" /> <figcaption> <p>“AfD=Fascism.” On Saturday, February 24, 2024, some 350 anti-fascists marched in memory of Mehmet Turgut in Rostock. Twenty years ago, on February 25, 2004, Mehmet was murdered by Nazis in a snack bar in the Rostock-Toitenwinkel district. At the demonstration in February 2024, speakers called for the street where Turgut was murdered to be named after him, as his family has wanted for ten years. Photograph by Jannis Grosse.</p> </figcaption> </figure> <hr /> <h1 id="never-again-is-nowhttpsblack-mosquitoorgmediaresized1170x658vesblognever-again-is-nowjpg-by-all-means-against-nazis"><a href="https://black-mosquito.org/media/resized/1170x658/ves/blog/never-again-is-now.jpg">Never Again Is Now</a>! By All Means against Nazis</h1> <p><em>A statement from <a href="https://black-mosquito.org/en/blog/news/nie-wieder-ist-jetzt-02-2024.html">Black Mosquito</a>, an anarchist distribution project based in Flensburg.</em></p> <p>Who would have expected it? Suddenly, millions in Germany are taking to the streets against the shift to the right and the fascist AfD, and in favor of a society based on solidarity. One record number trumped the next, numerous rallies and demonstrations could not even get off the ground due to overcrowding—in <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/C2XrwFkrUms/?img_index=1">Flensburg</a>, the demonstration moved through the city in a closed circle. More and more smaller towns, in the supposedly quiet countryside for Nazis, are also reporting <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/C2xAk_Ct214/">protests</a>, while encountering massive obstacles in <a href="https://twitter.com/aushoywoj/status/1753371492933345563">some cases</a>. We too are somewhat moved, pleased to see a break from the lethargy.</p> <p>And yes, there is much to criticize. Now those who have just allowed themselves to be politically chased through parliament by the AfD, who have just pushed through stricter deportation policies and impoverishment measures, are hypocritically styling themselves as saviors of democracy and human rights. In the course of the protest, an attempt is being made to swear everyone back in to the nation that has become good again with anti-fascist gestures and anti-social policies; a swearing in to parliamentary democracy and liberal economics, which have created many of these injustices and the breeding ground for fascism in the first place (more on this, for example, in our translation of <a href="https://black-mosquito.org/de/crimethinc-from-democracy-to-freedom-der-unterschied-zwischen-regierung-und-selbstbestimmung.html">From Democracy to Freedom</a>). We hope for critical interventions, content, and <a href="https://antifa-ak.org/nicht-zynisch-werden-ein-debattenbeitrag-zu-den-antifaschistischen-grossprotesten-und-was-sie-fuer-das-wahljahr-2024-bedeuten-koennten/">texts</a>. But in all of this, we should not fall for the trap of big politics and confuse those who are taking to the streets with us and are possibly in some local group associated with some left-liberal party with the politics of that party itself. The majority of people are standing beside us out of conviction and in clear rejection of fascist politics.</p> <p>Some of us are reminded of the “uprising of the decent” [in the year 2000], when hundreds of thousands took to the streets against an anti-Semitic arson attack and other right-wing acts of violence. Although the masses quickly returned to their comfortable sofas, the demonstrations opened up spaces in which people could find each other, connect, and network. Those were times when people got a tailwind, when we village anti-fascists didn’t feel alone and the fascists didn’t dare to take to the streets with such confidence. These connections and groups remained afterwards—and some of them still do today.</p> <p>If we manage to take something similar from this momentum, we will have gained a lot. If thousands take to the streets again and again in response to the next scandal about fascist plans for a coup, much would be gained. But even if it remains just a few organized anti-fascists who can act with more support in society, that will also be something. Because, as the AfD itself <a href="https://correctiv.org/aktuelles/neue-rechte/2024/01/17/geheimtreffen-in-potsdam-afd-mitarbeiter-bruestet-sich-mit-gewalt/">knows</a>, “Antifa [is] the biggest obstacle for the right.”</p> <p>Anti-fascism means more than broad alliances on the streets. It requires research, education, blockades, and direct, tangible interventions. Now is exactly the right time to take action against local fascist meeting places, to create new structures and to join forces across ideological boundaries. And right now, we must not forget those who are facing repression for their alleged practical anti-fascism—which is why we are supporting the <a href="https://www.wirsindallelinx.org/noextradition/">campaign</a> against the extradition of anti-fascists to Hungary.</p> <p>Siamo Tutti Antifa,</p> <p>the BM crew</p> <figure class=""> <img src="https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2024/03/06/2.jpg" /> <figcaption> <p>Nearly 100,000 people demonstrating against the far right in Hamburg on January 28, 2024. Photograph by Jannis Grosse.</p> </figcaption> </figure> <hr /> <h1 id="in-the-streets-against-fascism">In the Streets against Fascism</h1> <p><em>We conducted the following interview with anti-fascists in the north of Germany who have been active in various groups for many years. They desired to preserve their anonymity.</em></p> <p class="darkred"><strong>The AfD has accumulated considerable momentum since the pandemic. According to one <a href="https://apnews.com/article/germany-afd-far-right-protests-bundestag-berlin-90d8497434a424ded198ce3d6d5fabb9">report</a>, “Recent polling put the party in second place nationally with support of around 23%, far above the 10.3% of the vote it won during the last federal election in 2021.” Why has the AfD been able to more than double its support in less than three years? What is the larger context of this political shift in Germany?</strong></p> <p>We are seeing a general shift to the right. The governing coalition comprised of the “traffic light parties”—the SPD [Social Democratic Party] being red, Die Grünen [the Green Party] green, and the FDP [Free Democratic Party] yellow, hence the “traffic light”—are hardly distinguishable in their policies. The SPD and Greens, the supposed “left” parties, are being pushed towards neoliberal policies by the FDP, and they go along for fear of breaking the ruling coalition. In addition, the major “people’s parties” [the <em>Volksparteien,</em> including the Christian Democratic Union, the SPD, the FDP, and the Greens] are all trying to pick up votes on the right-wing fringe and catering to right-wing demands from the majority of society. And unfortunately, there is a right-wing potential in German society, which has now found a voice in a right-wing populist party through the AfD.</p> <p>The AfD has also become better structured internally, better trained, and has created networks. According to various studies and polls, the AfD can draw on a voter potential of 20-30 percent with its extreme right-wing positions. It has succeeded in retaining this core electorate. In the wake of the coronavirus pandemic and the government’s protective measures, a protest milieu has emerged that refuses to engage in democratic negotiation processes and is more interested in constructing personified images of an enemy. This imaging of the enemy can be used to depict supposed or actual elites, such as representatives of the government, but it can also target figures from science and the established media. It is about a generally negative attitude based on an authoritarian worldview. The focus is on holding on to and preserving one’s own privileges, which means opposing much-needed economic and ecological changes.</p> <p>The AfD has succeeded in integrating the motif of a supposed struggle of the elites against the people into its narrative. This allows it to constitute itself as the parliamentary arm of younger protest movements.</p> <p class="darkred"><strong>To what extent is this a conflict between different regions in Germany? What are the causes?</strong></p> <p>There has always been a rural/urban divide. In the city, there are more bourgeois, cosmopolitan structures; these can also be racist and right-wing, of course, but they tend not to be openly fascist. Many right-wingers have settled in the countryside, where they live and work.</p> <p>Divisions between east and west are also a problem. In the so-called DDR (the German Democratic Republic, commonly known as East Germany), there was a prescribed state anti-fascism, but in fact the state simply ignored right-wing structures. Officially, according to the government, no neo-Nazism existed—even though in fact, it did exist. There were hardly any forces in civil society acting against the right; there was a small grassroots anti-fascist movement, but it was criminalized.</p> <p>After the reunification of Germany [in 1990-1991], a lot of West German neo-Nazis moved to the east and began to establish structures. The worst riots against migrants in living memory took place as a result, from August 22 to 24, 1992, in the Lichtenhagen district of Rostock. Nazis all over Germany emulated this, and the so-called “Baseballschläger-Jahre” [the “baseball bat years”] began. From 1990 to 2000, right-wing terror and street violence were common—and not only in the “neuen Bundesländern” [the former east German states].</p> <p>Over thirty years later, the consequences of that can still be felt.</p> <p>The massive street protests in East Germany are also nourished by the experience of having overcome a system once before. This feeds into references to the protest movements at the end of the GDR [the German Democratic Republic, known as East Germany], but also into slogans such as “We are the people.” There was no equivalent in West Germany. Overall, conservative parties in the West have long endeavored not to allow any effective political actors to emerge to their right. However, supporters of these revanchist, racist, and right-wing conservative positions have felt less and less represented by a modernized conservatism, and the AfD has been able to use this circumstance to its advantage in the West.</p> <figure class=""> <img src="https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2024/03/06/3.jpg" /> <figcaption> <p>A demonstration in Hamburg on January 28, 2024. Photograph by Jannis Grosse.</p> </figcaption> </figure> <p class="darkred"><strong>Why have the far right been so successful in using immigration as an issue? Are there any other issues they have also been able to use to build support?</strong></p> <p>Immigration has been a major issue in Germany, especially from 2015 onwards. The social situation at the time was very divisive. Right-wing populist parties like AfD and fascist groups like Generation Identity sought to spread fear of migrants, using lies such as the idea that refugees pose a threat to women and children or that the welfare state could not afford to accommodate refugees. When refugees were settled in parts of Germany where the residents were unfriendly and racist, right-wing groups and parties led the protests against refugee camps.</p> <p>The far right capitalized on this division for recruitment, while the AfD took up the issue in the election campaigns. In general, right-wing parties are currently gaining support from those who reject the positions of the established parties (the “traffic light” coalition) around the issues of “climate change” and racism.</p> <p class="darkred"><strong>Some of the places that the far right has been most successful in Germany, such as small towns in eastern Germany—and across Europe as a whole, such as Hungary—are not the places that immigrants are going in the first place.</strong></p> <p>There is a lot of racism in Germany, which is also shared in the mainstream of society. This sort of racism works even without any real migrants. It is about prejudice, hatred, and ingrained attitudes like nationalism and authoritarianism. There is no need for real migrants to make this ideology convincing. It is most effective when people can project their fears onto imagined migrants.</p> <p class="darkred"><strong>Compare the rise of the far right in Germany to what has happened in other European countries—such as the Netherlands, Italy, France, Hungary—and the United States.</strong></p> <p>We can see many similarities to the rise of the extreme right in other European countries. For example, in all of these countries, the conservative parties in particular are no longer succeeding in reconciling the neoliberal policies of the European Union with the demands of local nationalists. In some ways, this is the result of attempts to modernize the conservative parties by updating their agendas and public image, which has coincided with a part of the conservative base radicalizing. Quite a few former members of the CDU [the Christian Democratic Union of Germany] can now be found in the AfD. We are also seeing this “crisis of conservatism” in many European countries. Many people are attracted to the idea of returning to the model of nation states that are free to decide on migration, their own economy, and other things independently of political developments in the EU; they assume that this would mean overcoming a supposed disadvantage.</p> <p>Another factor is the common migration policy of the European Union, which has been increasingly aimed at sealing itself off, while at the same time individual states still rely on the immigration of certain people, such as specialized professional groups. Various European right-wing parties are exploiting this ambivalence. According to their simplistic logic, all our supposed social problems could be solved simply by individual states consistently sealing themselves off from the outside world.</p> <figure class=""> <img src="https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2024/03/06/4.jpg" /> <figcaption> <p>A demonstration in Hamburg on January 28, 2024. Photograph by Jannis Grosse.</p> </figcaption> </figure> <p class="darkred"><strong>How important was the article published by the investigative journalists’ group Correctiv? To what extent do you think that “revealing information” has a role to play in mobilizing people against the far right?</strong></p> <p>The research was important in order to make it clear to a broad section of society what lies behind the ideas and slogans of the AfD and other right-wing parties. The links between conservatives (CDU) and right-wing populists (AfD) have also become clear once again. The fact that this research was picked up by almost all daily newspapers, TV stations and mainstream media also contributed to making many people show up at the demonstrations.</p> <p>These links were not news to the radical left. The information and the networks and structures were already known. However, it is of little use if some radical anti-fascists know about it, but it is not communicated to society. Antifa research is good and important, but it’s also important how and where the information is placed. And despite all the love for the big demonstrations—they are this big because the established parties promote them and act as speakers themselves. This is dishonest, because the SPD and the Greens are at least as guilty of racism and deportations because of their role in tightening the laws as the AfD and the fascists are of incitement and violence against refugees.</p> <p class="darkred"><strong>What has been the political impact in Germany of recent shifts in the information landscape, with the spread of disinformation and the control of social media platforms by rival factions of the elite?</strong></p> <p>In Germany, the fascist group “Identitäre bewegung” was banned by Facebook and YouTube before this shift. That had a massive Impact on them. The latest shifts have not made much of a difference in Germany compared to the United States, except on X/Twitter, where right-wing trolls have gotten a massive boost.</p> <p>Fascists have been using social media all along. The far right has long used social media channels such as Telegram and Instagram for its propaganda and networking. In recent years, however, they have also increasingly been using TikTok. The companies/providers let fascists get away with it because they cannot be held responsible under German law. Most of the companies are based in the USA and have much more permissive laws than Germany does when it comes to the use of Nazi symbols, for example. In Germany, such symbols are prohibited.</p> <p>The extreme right-wing and conspiracy ideology scene has created its own media formats that contribute to the spread of disinformation based on conspiracy narratives and, in some cases, deliberately false reports. They are quite successful at this, partly because this type of media consumption is suitable for confirming their own worldview. Within this worldview, established media are only portrayed as the mouthpieces of the elites or government and as untrustworthy or controlled. This is problematic insofar as it goes hand in hand with a refusal to seek to understand complex processes or social dynamics or to enter into political debate.</p> <figure class=""> <img src="https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2024/03/06/6.jpg" /> <figcaption> <p>On Saturday, February 3, following a football game in Hamburg, several thousand people joined FC St. Pauli fans to demonstrate against right-wing politics. “The vast majority of people here and at the other demonstrations are protesting not only against the AfD, but against the increasing shift to the right—we don’t care at all which party is pushing it,” one speaker declared to applause at the beginning of the demonstration. Photograph by Jannis Grosse.</p> </figcaption> </figure> <p class="darkred"><strong>Describe the wave of protests in Germany over the past few weeks. Who has benefitted from them, and how?</strong></p> <p>The protests chiefly consist of large rallies and demonstrations that always involve broad coalitions, are nonviolent, and are accepted by the cops. These are signs that the parties currently in power are also interested in these demonstrations. As anti-fascists, we are more used to police attacking us and trying to prevent us from taking direct actions against Nazis.</p> <p>On the other hand, many activists certainly benefited, especially in smaller towns, where people who have been campaigning for a diverse and open society for years finally saw a noticeable increase in their numbers. Especially in places with a right-wing hegemony on the streets or in politics, such moments can give strength, regardless of how long the protests continue. This is probably one of the biggest challenges of the coming months: will some of those who are now taking to the streets against the AfD become integrated into long-term organizing processes, or will this be nothing more than a short-lived expression of outrage?</p> <p class="darkred"><strong>What strategies are the centrist political parties using to try to channel and control this movement?</strong></p> <p>They are presenting themselves as true anti-fascists, giving speeches at the large coalition demonstrations or even calling for the demonstrations themselves. In addition, large alliances sometimes try to exclude left or radical left positions. As a reminder: a few weeks ago, the current government passed the biggest and most blatant tightening of the asylum laws in years. At the same time, they are upset about the AfD and its phrasing. In terms of racist content, there is hardly any difference.</p> <figure class=""> <img src="https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2024/03/06/5.jpg" /> <figcaption> <p>Anarchists and anti-fascists in the mass mobilizations. Photograph by Jannis Grosse.</p> </figcaption> </figure> <p class="darkred"><strong>Were there places in Germany where anti-fascists succeeded in using this opportunity to connect with people and build momentum? What strategies can you propose for anarchists and anti-authoritarians to engage with people and take action in such moments, when large numbers of people are suddenly motivated to respond to the rise of the far right?</strong></p> <p>Individually and regionally, people have certainly become politicized through the big demonstrations and are looking to network with local leftists. Such demonstrations are also a good way to reassure your friends and comrades that you are not alone.</p> <p>But so far, the demonstrations have not had any social impact. The AfD, which was the target of the demonstrations, was able to gain even more percentage points in the polls for the upcoming elections. We call on people to get actively involved in such mobilizations. Make your own blocs, be there with banners and fliers and try to create a radical left-wing image. In addition, politicians who belong to parties that are themselves racist should be booed and forced off the stage.</p> <p>Furthermore, the demonstrations are not as big everywhere. Especially in the east or in the countryside, the demonstrations are smaller and sometimes neo-Nazis provoke people from the sidelines. There, it is important to protect your own structures and chase the neo-Nazis away.</p> <p class="darkred"><strong>In the long run, what do you think it will take to prevent the far right from coming to power, to prevent centrist political parties from adopting the policies of the far right, and to build an anti-fascist movement that can transform society?</strong></p> <p>The main problem is that the parties of the “traffic light” coalition are pursuing neoliberal policies through and through. Solidarity and the welfare state are just empty words. Austerity measures are being implemented everywhere and fears of decline are being stirred up among the “middle classes.” However, the majority of society and other fans of authoritarianism are not looking for the causes in the system itself, but are looking for scapegoats to blame. The scapegoats include not only the right (such as the AfD), but also the parties of the traffic light, the poor, refugees, and others.</p> <p>We need to campaign for more solidarity within society, we need to proactively protect our structures and friends—both from Nazis and from cops. More militant options must be used in dealing with the right. At the same time, we must prevent established politics from co-opting the major protests.</p> <figure class=""> <img src="https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2024/03/06/7.jpg" /> <figcaption> <p>Demonstrators in the St. Pauli neighborhood of Hamburg on February 3, 2024. Photograph by Jannis Grosse.</p> </figcaption> </figure> <hr /> <blockquote> <p>Some anti-fascists have feared that in resisting far-right parties, we could drive more right-wing conservatives into supporting them. But fascists are not created by opposition to fascism—they are the result of successful fascist recruiting. We should seek to alienate people from the far right by all means—for example, by excluding AfD members from all public events, including family gatherings, bars, and concerts. It should not be possible for them to create the impression that they receive tacit support from the rest of the population, nor to cultivate an air of political and social legitimacy.</p> <p>In some German cities, such as <a href="http://antifaflensburg.blogsport.de/2016/11/26/schleswig-afd-kreisparteitag-gestoert/">Flensburg</a>, the AfD have been unable to find locations to host their events, and when they have organized public activities there has been so much resistance that these could only take place due to a major police presence. Where the AfD has met <a href="https://nationalismusistkeinealternative.net/category/vor-ort/schleswig-holstein/">powerful street resistance</a>, they have not been able to increase their percentage of the vote as significantly. This may simply be correlation, rather than causation, but no one joins a fascist party to be a victim. When participating in fascist activity fails to help them achieve their goals or give them an outlet for their agency, we can hope that they will ultimately focus on other things.</p> <p>-<a href="https://crimethinc.com/2017/10/01/the-rise-of-neo-fascism-in-germany-alternative-fur-deutschland-enters-the-parliament">The Rise of Neo-Fascism in Germany</a> (October 2017)</p> </blockquote> <figure class=""> <img src="https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2024/03/06/8.jpg" /> <figcaption> <p>Photograph by Jannis Grosse.</p> </figcaption> </figure> https://crimethinc.com/2024/02/29/memories-of-aaron-bushnell-as-recounted-by-his-friends 2024-02-29T11:48:39Z 2024-03-13T08:56:42Z Memories of Aaron Bushnell : As Recounted by His Friends We share Aaron’s own summary of his anarchist politics, followed by memories from three of his close friends. <figure><img class="u-photo" alt="" src="https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2024/02/30/header.jpg" /></figure> <p>On February 25, Aaron Bushnell set himself on fire at the gate of the Israeli embassy in Washington, DC as an <a href="https://crimethinc.com/2024/02/26/this-is-what-our-ruling-class-has-decided-will-be-normal-on-aaron-bushnells-action-in-solidarity-with-gaza">act of protest</a> against the ongoing <a href="https://crimethinc.com/2024/02/13/human-rights-discourse-has-failed-to-stop-the-genocide-in-gaza-an-anarchist-from-jaffa-on-the-necessity-of-anti-colonial-strategies-for-liberation">genocide</a> of Palestinians in Gaza. Hostile critics have attempted to shrug off Aaron’s action as the consequence of mental illness. On the contrary, Aaron’s choice was a political action arising from his deeply held anarchist convictions. In the following collection, we share Aaron’s own summary of his politics, followed by testimony from three of Aaron’s close friends.</p> <figure class=""> <img src="https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2024/02/30/9.jpg" /> <figcaption> <p>An altar honoring Aaron’s life, at a vigil his friends held in remembrance of him on February 27.</p> </figcaption> </figure> <p>As Aaron recounted to his comrades in a mutual aid group in San Antonio, he grew up in a very Christian conservative white enclave in Cape Cod. He was 18 years old when Donald Trump was elected; he joined the Air Force in 2019. While in the Air Force, he arrived at anarchist politics through a process of self-education.</p> <p>In February 2023, Aaron prepared a document aimed at helping this group to become more cohesive. As another participant in the group told us, “Aaron sought to formalize and mature some of our organizing methods, and he felt that having deep and open discussion was a crucial first step for building long-term trust. He created a list of questions as a way for our ragtag group of lefties doing mutual aid to start a conversation with each other.”</p> <p>In his own answers to these questions, Aaron states:</p> <blockquote> <p>I am an anarchist, which means I believe in the abolition of all hierarchical power structures, especially capitalism and the state… I view the work we do as fighting back in the class war which the capitalist class wages on the rest of humanity. This also informs the way in which I want to organize, as I believe that any hierarchical power structure is bound to reproduce class dynamics and oppression. Thus, I want to engage in egalitarian forms of organizing that produce horizontal power structures based on mutual aid and solidarity, which are capable of liberating humans…</p> <p>I favor consensus-based decision-making over “democratic” or voting-based governance.</p> </blockquote> <p>In the same document, Aaron explained why he was committed to doing mutual aid work in solidarity with the unhoused:</p> <blockquote> <p>I’ve always been bothered by the reality of homelessness, even back when I was growing up in a conservative community. I have come to believe in the importance of solidarity politics and I view the enforcement of homelessness as a major front in the class war which must be challenged for all our sakes. I view helping my houseless neighbors as a moral obligation, a matter of social justice, and a matter of good politics. If I don’t stand with those more marginalized than me today then who will be left to stand with me tomorrow.</p> <p>I view enforced homelessness as a societal failing and a crime against humanity. I believe that no one deserves to be deprived of basic human necessities. I believe that homelessness as an involuntary condition must be abolished.</p> </blockquote> <p>In the following three accounts, Aaron’s friends share their memories of who he was and how his life touched their lives.</p> <p>If you wish to do something in Aaron’s memory, one option is to donate to the <a href="https://www.pcrf.net/">Palestine Children’s Relief Fund</a>, which he mentioned in his will.</p> <figure class=""> <img src="https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2024/02/30/2.jpg" /> <figcaption> <p>Aaron and friends watching a solar eclipse.</p> </figcaption> </figure> <hr /> <h1 id="aaron-will-live-forever">“Aaron Will Live Forever”</h1> <p><em>Lupe</em></p> <p>Aaron will live forever. I know this, because everyone who was loved by Aaron will carry a bit of him in their soul, and everyone who witnessed his sacrifice will carry him in their minds. Aaron cherished life. He knew that in giving up his own, he could give the people of Palestine a chance to keep theirs. Aaron has permanently changed the fabric of your being. You know this because for the rest of your life, you will wrestle with the thought of what you will sacrifice for the liberation of others.</p> <p>My friend said that everywhere Aaron went, he planted trees. I imagine these seeds planted in our hearts and minds. They will sprout, and they will grow into giant strong trees with deep roots built to weather the many battles that lie ahead on this burning planet. They will remain upright, like Aaron did, until they no longer can, but by then their own seeds will have been planted in the hearts of our loved ones, and they will grow into trees as well. They will continue this struggle until the beautiful world that Aaron knew we deserved is born.</p> <figure class="portrait"> <img src="https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2024/02/30/5.jpg" /> <figcaption> <p>Aaron Bushnell.</p> </figcaption> </figure> <hr /> <h1 id="he-was-someone-we-really-needed">“He Was Someone We Really Needed”</h1> <p><em>T Bear</em></p> <p>It seems a lot of people just saw Aaron as someone in the military. Online lefties and liberal media alike were quick to dispose of his words and actions, and choose instead to judge him based on puritanical ideals just as bad as the ones he’s been trying to escape his entire adult life.</p> <p>I write this knowing it will be read by comrades. I want to say something profound that can make us reflect on why we have such a tendency to be so quick to treat others as disposable, but I don’t think I can. I hope that instead, you will carry the burden of finding an answer to that with me.</p> <p>After a lifetime of engaging with anarchists, it was this recently radicalized, 25-year-old active-duty airman I spent two years with who showed me my chains—long before his decision to leave this earth. Aaron had this effect on every single person he met. He was incredibly committed to developing relationships based on deep trust and understanding—and would be the first to give you the raised brows for a snarky answer to an important question. He never let a potential harm go unaddressed. He embodied more than anyone I know the anarchist spirit, “that deeply human sentiment, which aims at the good of all, freedom and justice for all, solidarity and love among the people.”<sup id="fnref:1" role="doc-noteref"><a href="#fn:1" class="footnote" rel="footnote">1</a></sup></p> <p>He was someone we really needed here. I encourage you remember Aaron’s words and actions the next time you’re about to flatten someone’s lived experiences. I encourage you to reflect on your relationships, and how you can reduce control and coercive power dynamics. I encourage you to build deeper, and ever deeper, bonds with your comrades. Honor them now. It’s not worth losing them.</p> <figure class=""> <img src="https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2024/02/30/10.jpg" /> <figcaption> <p>An altar honoring Aaron’s life, at a vigil his friends held in remembrance of him on February 27.</p> </figcaption> </figure> <hr /> <h1 id="do-not-forget-his-message">“Do Not Forget His Message”</h1> <p><em>Moon</em></p> <p>I am speaking to you as a friend and comrade of Aaron‘s, but I want to first acknowledge his last message to the world about the genocide in Gaza of Palestinians by Israel. The daily horror inflicted by the Israeli occupation forces on Palestinians is unconscionable and morally reprehensible, but it is normalized in our society by our government and all the other imperialist nations. We must acknowledge that this occupation in Israel must end, and everyone in Palestine must be free to live on their land and prosper without the threat of colonization.</p> <p>Aaron himself was a principled, strong-willed man. He was keenly aware of hierarchical relationships due to his experiences growing up, and consistently pushed back on any potential hierarchies in our day-to-day organizing. He was steadfast, and I respected that greatly. He taught me so much about how to build my position, and the importance of building your own positions—because it does inform the work that you do and the organizing that you do.</p> <p>From Aaron’s sacrifice, I would like to bring attention to the risk that many of us face in the imperial core: complacency. We organize in the streets, get ignored, and then become complacent and further complicit. Let us not forget that we live in a settler-colonial society here as well—many of us are settlers—and we are also complicit in the genocide of our colonized neighbors, native Indigenous and Black people. We need to organize for long-term community building, long-term action, and sustainable radical action. The purpose of building social institutions is to keep momentum going so that no one ever feels the need to make a sacrifice like this again.</p> <p>I love Aaron. He was my friend and comrade and I miss him a lot. Do not forget his message.</p> <hr /> <h1 id="my-friend-aaron">“My Friend Aaron”</h1> <p><em>E</em></p> <p>My friend Aaron was kind, compassionate, and principled, sometimes to the point of being annoying, and he was incredibly reflective and willing to change to meet my needs in our relationship. He was one of my quickest and best friends.</p> <p>I loved Aaron deeply. I have few regrets from my relationship with him. I was consistently vulnerable and open, which he returned in kind. I told him all the things I felt for him and often. I spent as much time with him as I possibly could and I am very grateful that I did. What I am most afraid of in this moment is that our relationship, our friendship, the deep, deep love I had for him, all of the little intimate moments, the bits, the laughs, the facts about his takes, all of it—I am afraid to be the only person holding that knowledge. I don’t want it to disappear, I don’t want it to be held only by me and my fallible memory. I just want people to know that I loved him.</p> <figure class="portrait"> <img src="https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2024/02/30/11.jpg" /> <figcaption> <p>An altar honoring Aaron’s life at the vigil at which Aaron’s friend read this text aloud.</p> </figcaption> </figure> <h2 id="cult">Cult</h2> <p>I want to provide some background context on Aaron’s life. He shared this with me in confidence, but I feel OK sharing it with you all now because he is gone and I want to help contextualize him for you all. The press has also reached out to people from his past so it will be coming out regardless and I think it’s better y’all learn from a comrade.</p> <p>Aaron was raised in a cult. A Christian sect and self-styled monastery called the Community of Jesus. In this cult, as is a quality of many cults, Aaron was kept busy constantly from a very young age. Through working as unpaid labor, engaging in intensive training for performance arts programs organized by the community, or engaging in worship. This traumatized him deeply, partially because he had to maintain that while grappling with his neurodivergence that interfered with his ability to perform tasks well. He had to learn to mask very young and felt that his childhood was stolen from him. As a teenager, he had to work every day at multiple jobs one summer in order to make enough money to pay superfluous fees for a performance arts program he was required to be in. Everything at the Community of Jesus was motivated by shame and guilt and the threat of ostracization. This affected him deeply and fundamentally shaped how he could and could not engage in building relationships with people. It is the reason he left SACC [San Antonio Collective Care], for his own protection. I was incredibly lucky to have been able to forge the relationship I did with him.</p> <figure class="portrait"> <img src="https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2024/02/30/8.jpg" /> </figure> <p>Being raised in a cult, essentially a small society with different cultural norms than ours, gave Aaron the ability to see and better identify the norms and qualities of our society that are harder for us to see because we have been conditioned within it. He could see the latent fascist logic and cult-like tendencies that we swim through every day. He could see and feel them in ways that I struggle to feel and understand beyond an intellectual level. He was always very cagey about his past and did his best not to lie. You may recall him saying things like “sort of” or “something like that” whenever he was asked questions about being in theatre or band.</p> <p>When Aaron lived there, he was a full believer, engaging in all of the shaming rituals and cycles of harm. He was completely invested in that reality. The fact that he was able to escape that ideology and the visceral experience of the shattering of that worldview was one of the things that made him so incredibly principled and dedicated to the abolition of hierarchy.</p> <figure class="portrait"> <img src="https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2024/02/30/3.jpg" /> </figure> <h2 id="times-he-changed-and-reflected">Times He Changed and Reflected</h2> <p>We would text and I would accuse him of texting like a straight man (which he was). He would never use reaction emojis or punctuation or expressions of laughter like lol. It was incredibly annoying. And he made such an active effort to do those things after I asked him to, very quickly and consistently.</p> <p>Once, Aaron and I were having a discussion, a political one about the ethics of eating and producing meat. As a former vegan, I had many takes, as did he. At one point, the conversation got to plants and Aaron expressed that he thought of plants as nothing more than biological machines completely devoid of life or at least the essence that makes something morally valuable and worth protecting, like sentient animals. I was honestly very shocked. I told him he was wrong, in more words than that, and told him to read <em><a href="https://sps.berkeley.edu/static/documents/EnI/Week_3_2.pdf">Braiding Sweetgrass</a>,</em> kind of in the way you tell people to read books but never actually expect them to. Our conversation seemed to weigh heavy on him, it came up a few more times over the following weeks. On his drive up to Ohio, he listened to <em>Braiding Sweetgrass</em> and he was texting me about it. He really, really liked it. I think it reshaped some of his worldview.</p> <figure class="portrait"> <img src="https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2024/02/30/6.jpg" /> <figcaption> <p>Aaron with his beloved cat, Sugar.</p> </figcaption> </figure> <h2 id="principled">Principled</h2> <p>Aaron saw hierarchy and injustice and his role in those systems and hated it. He felt a lot of guilt because of the situation he was raised in; guilt was the primary emotion through which he engaged with most things. I feel very sad that he was not able to heal from that fully before this.</p> <p>He had so much love for his cats. The contradictions of owning someone you love weighed on him heavily. He was constantly thinking of how to best accommodate them and navigate this relationship of domination, complete control of their agency. I saw how it genuinely distressed him.</p> <p>Aaron refused to say words like crazy, insane, or lame due to their roots in ableism and he got on me for my use of the word lame constantly. He wouldn’t say the word fuck because he saw its roots in misogyny and hetero-patriarchy.</p> <p>Aaron also didn’t like the word democracy for reasons that are too long to explain; we would argue about it a lot, it was kind of a recurring bit.</p> <p>Aaron deleted Signal before he self-immolated. A last act of security and love for his comrades.</p> <figure class="portrait"> <img src="https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2024/02/30/1.jpg" /> <figcaption> <p>Aaron <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/C309AVDJuWi/?img_index=2">serving food</a> in Ohio as part of the mutual aid organization Serve the People Akron. “Aaron was a valued member of our organization and the community who immediately jumped in to help the unhoused and any project that came up. He was dependable and persistent with the mutual aid work he did in a city that was still new to him. We will be forever grateful for the effort he put in to make Akron a better place.”</p> </figcaption> </figure> <h2 id="excerpts">Excerpts</h2> <p>I was very vulnerable and open with Aaron and I am proud of that. Vulnerability builds trust and deepens our bonds with each other; it is something that I actively work to cultivate in myself. To that end, I would like to share excerpts from two things I wrote to Aaron.</p> <blockquote> <p>All of our relationships change us, shape us. When I look at the people, the friends, who I love the most, the people who I have the most secure loving relationships with, I can mark the ways that they have changed me. The mannerisms, habits, forms of speech, or worldviews that I adopted from them. It makes me feel so proud and thankful. There is no doubt that you have already changed me in ways that I will be proud of and thankful for, but I feel that one of the things that hurts most is mourning the loss of the ways that you could change me…</p> <p>I wish I could know you more. There are so many other things I want to know about you and so many other things I want you to know about me. I wish I could get to see firsthand your continuing political development and I wish we could have closer impacts on each other’s development. I wish you could see mine, to change it and make me into a better revolutionary. I want to see you in struggle, to learn how to struggle next to you and to struggle with you. I want you to be here.</p> </blockquote> <blockquote> <p>I keep imagining you here. Upon reflecting I am imagining you here but not as I know you, I am imagining you here and free. Free of your military indenturement. It brings me so much joy to imagine you free and in struggle, to imagine your joy.</p> </blockquote> <figure class=""> <img src="https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2024/02/30/7.jpg" /> </figure> <h2 id="conclusion">Conclusion</h2> <p>I think it will be hard to grieve this loss without being able to be with his body. To not get to experience the physical and psychological effects of being with his body after he is gone.</p> <p>I am feeling tiny and crushed by the magnitude and inertia of the systems we are fighting against. I feel tiny and helpless in the face of these systems that have existed for hundreds of years and will likely exist for hundreds more. I normally feel quite the opposite but right now I feel so small. How in this world do we find peace that is not complicity? I hope Aaron found his.</p> <p>But the outpouring of support and parallel grief from you all and my comrades around the country has been immense and I am truly in awe. I used to tell Aaron about how sometimes I would get overcome with awe and love to the point of crying while thinking about my comrades. Y’all’s support has moved me to tears many times in the past few days. I don’t have words to express how much I love you all. I am just in constant and pure awe.</p> <figure class=""> <img src="https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2024/02/30/4.jpg" /> <figcaption> <p>Aaron and his friends.</p> </figcaption> </figure> <p>I want to end with two things, some words from Aaron’s will and a poem that he had been practicing to recite once he was out of the military.</p> <p>From Aaron’s will:</p> <blockquote> <p>“I am sorry to my brother and my friends for leaving you like this. Of course, if I was truly sorry, I wouldn’t be doing it. But the machine demands blood. None of this is fair.”</p> </blockquote> <blockquote> <p>“I wish for my remains to be cremated. I do not wish for my ashes to be scattered or my remains to be buried as my body does not belong anywhere in this world. If a time comes when Palestinians regain control of their land, and if the people native to the land would be open to the possibility, I would love for my ashes to be scattered in a free Palestine.”</p> </blockquote> <hr /> <h2 id="the-empire-raised-me">The Empire Raised Me</h2> <p><em>A Poem from <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BULTW43JTn8&amp;t=70s">Anansi’s Library</a></em></p> <p>I was a soldier for her before I knew her name<br /> Raised to die before I fully knew mine<br /> Crafted by hand for eternal war<br /> Raised for combat as the empire’s ward<br /> I was raised a soldier<br /> I was built for bowing down<br /> To drop to my knees and worship at the sound of<br /> Blood money capital and oil king’s crown<br /> Obey our enforcers, pray to our flag<br /> Our god is the state and war is her ballad<br /> And you were raised a soldier<br /> Stay your tongue child keep silent I beg<br /> Don’t you know that our god can look into your head<br /> See thoughts and images<br /> Fears and dread and shape it all into will<br /> Ask too many questions<br /> Look through the fog<br /> Set truth to deception and raise up the mob<br /> Fight for real justice and soon you will see<br /> The beauty of our weapons pointed straight at you and me<br /> In the end this state knows no loyalty<br /> For we were both raised soldiers<br /> Peer through the windows and watch every street<br /> Heed George Jackson’s words<br /> Watch the pigs and never sleep<br /> A muzzle in tall grass<br /> A flashbang in the dark<br /> Bombs for the masses<br /> Soon the fires will start<br /> A stalker in the nighttime<br /> A predator<br /> A drone<br /> Tear gas and flames<br /> Jack boots in your home<br /> Door-to-door searches<br /> To your knees dropping atone<br /> Fearful and wordless we all look on<br /> Toward the burning of Rome this can only progress<br /> Toward panic in the streets<br /> Police violence and unrest<br /> Desperate riots to escape the cruelty<br /> While the guilt is placed square on the shoulders of those in need<br /> Fighting for justice is the greatest of sins<br /> Punished by death since the empire began<br /> And I was raised a soldier<br /> Now the muzzle is at my back<br /> The boots are at my door<br /> The guns are all racked<br /> And like my ancestors before<br /> A hail of bullets will set me free<br /> Express one day delivery<br /> From your state god to thee<br /> Expect from your lord no loyalty<br /> For I was raised a soldier</p> <hr /> <figure class=""> <img src="https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2024/02/30/12.jpg" /> </figure> <div class="footnotes" role="doc-endnotes"> <ol> <li id="fn:1" role="doc-endnote"> <p>“By anarchist spirit I mean that deeply human sentiment, which aims at the good of all, freedom and justice for all, solidarity and love among the people; which is not an exclusive characteristic only of self-declared anarchists, but inspires all people who have a generous heart and an open mind.” Errico Malatesta, <em>Umanita Nova,</em> April 13, 1922 <a href="#fnref:1" class="reversefootnote" role="doc-backlink">&#8617;</a></p> </li> </ol> </div> https://crimethinc.com/2024/02/26/this-is-what-our-ruling-class-has-decided-will-be-normal-on-aaron-bushnells-action-in-solidarity-with-gaza 2024-02-26T09:05:40Z 2024-03-14T17:26:04Z “This Is What Our Ruling Class Has Decided Will Be Normal” : On Aaron Bushnell’s Action in Solidarity with Gaza On February 25, we received an email from a person who signed himself Aaron Bushnell, announcing an act of protest against the genocide of Palestinians. <figure><img class="u-photo" alt="" src="https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2024/02/25/header.jpg" /></figure> <p>On Sunday, February 25, we received an email from a person who signed himself<sup id="fnref:1" role="doc-noteref"><a href="#fn:1" class="footnote" rel="footnote">1</a></sup> Aaron Bushnell.</p> <p>It read,</p> <blockquote> <p>Today, I am planning to engage in an extreme act of protest against the genocide of the Palestinian people. The below links should take you to a livestream and recorded footage of the event, which will be highly disturbing. I ask that you make sure that the footage is preserved and reported on.</p> </blockquote> <p>We consulted the Twitch account. The username displayed was “LillyAnarKitty,” and the user icon was a circle A, the universal signifier for anarchism—the movement against all forms of domination and oppression.</p> <p>In the video, Aaron begins by introducing himself. “My name is Aaron Bushnell. I am an active-duty member of the US Air Force and I will no longer be complicit in genocide. I’m about to engage in an extreme act of protest—but compared to what people have been experiencing in Palestine at the hands of their colonizers, it’s not extreme at all. This is what our ruling class has decided will be normal.”</p> <p>The video shows Aaron continuing to film as he walks to the gate of the Israeli embassy in Washington, DC, puts down the phone, douses himself in a flammable liquid, and sets himself alight, shouting “Free Palestine” several times. After he collapses, police officers who had been watching the situation unfold run into the frame—one with a fire extinguisher, another<sup id="fnref:2" role="doc-noteref"><a href="#fn:2" class="footnote" rel="footnote">2</a></sup> with a gun. The officer continues pointing the gun at Aaron for over thirty seconds as Aaron lies on the ground, burning.</p> <p>Afterwards, police <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/man-critical-condition-after-setting-fire-israeli-embassy/story?id=107531773">announced</a> that they had called in their Explosive Ordinance Disposal Unit, though there were no explosives on site.</p> <p>We have since confirmed the identity of Aaron Bushnell. He served in the United States Air Force for almost four years. One of his loved ones described Aaron to us as “a force of joy in our community.” An <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/C3ymE1RO2FO/">online post</a> described him as “an amazingly gentle, kind, compassionate person who spends every minute and penny he has helping others. He is silly, makes anyone laugh, and wouldn’t hurt a fly. He is a principled anarchist who lives out his values in everything he does.”</p> <p>Aaron’s friends tell us that he has passed away as a consequence of his injuries.</p> <p>All afternoon, while other journalists were breaking the news, we discussed how we should speak about this. Some subjects are too complex to address in a hasty social media post.</p> <figure class=""> <img src="https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2024/02/25/1.jpg" /> </figure> <hr /> <p>The scale of the tragedy that is taking place in Gaza is heartrending. It <a href="https://crimethinc.com/2024/02/13/human-rights-discourse-has-failed-to-stop-the-genocide-in-gaza-an-anarchist-from-jaffa-on-the-necessity-of-anti-colonial-strategies-for-liberation">exceeds</a> anything we can understand from the vantage point of the United States. Over 30,000 Palestinians have been killed, including over 12,000 children. More than half of all inhabitable buildings in all of Gaza have been destroyed, along with the majority of hospitals. The vast majority of the population are living as refugees with little access to water, food, or shelter.</p> <p>The Israeli military is now planning a ground invasion of Rafah that will add untold numbers of casualties to this toll. It is not hyperbole to say that we are witnessing the deliberate commission of genocide. All available evidence indicates that the Israeli military will continue killing Palestinians by the thousand until they are forced to stop. And the longer this bloodshed goes on, the more people will die in the future, as other governments and groups imitate the precedent set by the Israeli government.</p> <p>The United States government bears equal responsibility in this tragedy, having armed and financed Israel and provided it with impunity in the sphere of international relations. Within Israel, the authorities have effectively suppressed protest movements in solidarity with Gaza. If protests are going to exert leverage towards stopping the genocide, it is up to people in the United States to figure out how to accomplish that.</p> <p>But what will it take? Thousands across the country have engaged in brave acts of protest without yet succeeding in putting a halt to Israel’s assault.</p> <p>Aaron Bushnell was one of those who empathized with the Palestinians suffering and dying in Gaza, one of those haunted by the question of what our responsibilities are when we are confronted with such a tragedy. In this regard, he was exemplary. We honor his desire not to stand by passively in the face of atrocity.</p> <p>The death of a person in the United States should not be considered any more tragic—or more newsworthy—than the death of a single Palestinian. Still, there is more to say about his decision.</p> <hr /> <p>Aaron was the second person to self-immolate at an Israeli diplomatic institution in the United States. Another demonstrator <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/30/world/middleeast/protester-fire-israeli-consulate-atlanta.html">did the same thing</a> at the Israeli consulate in Atlanta on December 1, 2023. It is not easy for us to know how to speak about their deaths.</p> <p>Some journalists see themselves as engaged in the neutral activity of spreading information as an end in itself—as if the process of selecting what to spread and how to frame it could ever be neutral. For our part, when we speak, we presume that we are speaking to people of action, people like ourselves who are aware of their agency and are in the process of deciding what to do, people who may be wrestling with heartache and despair.</p> <p>Human beings influence each other both through rational argument and through the infectiousness of action. As Peter Kropotkin <a href="https://revolution.chnm.org/d/560">put it</a>, “Courage, devotion, the spirit of sacrifice are as contagious as cowardice, submission, and panic.”</p> <p>Just as we have a responsibility not to show cowardice, we also have a responsibility not to promote sacrifice casually. We must not speak carelessly about taking risks, even risks that we have taken ourselves. It is one thing to expose oneself to risk; it is another thing to invite others to run risks, not knowing what the consequences might be for them.</p> <p>And here, we are not speaking about a risk, but about the worst of all certainties.</p> <p>Let’s not glamorize the decision to end one’s life, nor celebrate anything with such permanent repercussions. Rather than exalting Aaron as a martyr and encouraging others to emulate him, we honor his memory, but we exhort you to take a different path.</p> <hr /> <blockquote> <p>“This is what our ruling class has decided will be normal.”</p> </blockquote> <p>These words of Aaron’s haunt us.</p> <p>He is right. We are rapidly entering an era in which human life is treated as worthless. This is obvious in Gaza, but we can see it elsewhere around the world, as well. With wars proliferating around the Mideast and North Africa, we are poised on the threshold of a new age of genocides. Even inside the United States, <a href="https://crimethinc.com/2022/05/27/their-guns-wont-protect-you-but-they-can-get-you-killed-why-neither-policing-nor-gun-control-will-suffice-to-stop-the-shootings">mass casualty incidents</a> have become routine, while an entire segment of the underclass is consigned to <a href="https://crimethinc.com/2017/10/09/the-opioid-crisis-how-white-despair-poses-a-threat-to-people-of-color">addiction</a>, homelessness, and death.</p> <p>As a tactic, self-immolation expresses a logic similar to the premise of the hunger strike. The protester treats himself or herself as a hostage, attempting to use his or her willingness to die to pressure the authorities. This strategy presumes that the authorities are concerned with the protester’s well-being in the first place. Today, however, as we wrote in regards to the hunger strike of <a href="https://crimethinc.com/2023/02/03/solidarity-with-alfredo-cospito">Alfredo Cospito</a>,</p> <blockquote> <p>No one should have any illusions about how governments view the sanctity of life in the age of COVID-19, when the United States government can countenance the deaths of a million people without blushing while the Russian government explicitly employs convicts as cannon fodder. The newly-elected <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2022/09/giorgia-meloni-italy-election-fascism-mussolini/671515/">fascist</a> politicians who govern Italy have no scruples about consigning whole populations to death, let alone permitting a single anarchist to die.</p> </blockquote> <p>In this case, Aaron was not an imprisoned anarchist, but an active-duty member of the US military. His linkedin profile specifies that he graduated from basic training “top of flight and top of class.” Will this make any difference to the US government?</p> <p>If nothing else, Aaron’s action shows that genocide cannot take place overseas without collateral damage on this side of the ocean. Unfortunately, the authorities have never been especially moved by the deaths of US military personnel. Countless US veterans have struggled with addiction and homelessness since returning from Iraq and <a href="https://crimethinc.com/2021/08/16/afghanistan-the-taliban-victory-in-a-global-context-a-perspective-from-a-veteran-of-the-us-occupation">Afghanistan</a>. Veterans commit suicide at a <a href="https://www.mentalhealth.va.gov/docs/data-sheets/2022/2022-National-Veteran-Suicide-Prevention-Annual-Report-FINAL-508.pdf">much higher rate</a> than all other adults. The US military continues to use weapons that <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/26/us/military-brain-injury-rocket-launcher.html">expose US troops to permanent brain injuries</a>.</p> <p>Members of the military are taught to understand their willingness to die as the chief resource they have to put at the service of the things they believe in. In many cases, this way of thinking is passed down intergenerationally. At the same time, the ruling class takes the deaths of soldiers in stride. <em>This is what they have decided will be normal.</em></p> <p>It is not willingness to die that will sway our rulers. They really fear our lives, not our deaths—they fear our willingness to act collectively according to a different logic, actively interrupting their order.</p> <p>Many things that are worth doing entail risks, but choosing to intentionally end your life means foreclosing years or decades of possibility, denying the rest of us a future with you. If such a decision is ever appropriate, it is only when every other possible course of action has been exhausted.</p> <p>Uncertainty is one of the most difficult things for human beings to bear. There is a tendency to seek to resolve it as quickly as possible, even by imposing the worst-case scenario in advance—even if that means choosing death. There is a sort of relief in knowing how things will turn out. Too often, despair and self-sacrifice mingle and blur together, offering an all-too-simple escape from tragedies that appear unsolvable.</p> <p>If your heart is broken by the horrors in Gaza and you are prepared to bear significant consequences to try to stop them, we urge you to do everything in your power to find comrades and make plans collectively. Lay the foundations for a full life of resistance to colonialism and all forms of oppression. Prepare to take risks as your conscience demands, but don’t hurry towards self-destruction. We desperately need you alive, at our side, for all that is to come.</p> <p>As we wrote in 2011 in reference to the self-immolation of <a href="https://crimethinc.com/2011/12/17/self-destruction">Mohamed Bouazizi</a>,</p> <blockquote> <p>Nothing is more terrifying than departing from what we know. It may take more courage to do this without killing oneself than it does to light oneself on fire. Such courage is easier to find in company; there is so much we can do together that we cannot do as individuals. If he had been able to participate in a powerful social movement, perhaps Bouazizi would never have committed suicide; but paradoxically, for such a thing to be possible, each of us has to take a step analogous to the one he took into the void.</p> </blockquote> <p>Let’s admit that the kind of protest activity that has taken place thus far in the United States has not served to compel the US government to compel a halt to the genocide in Gaza. It is an open question what could accomplish that. Aaron’s action challenges us to answer this question—and to answer it differently than he did.</p> <p>We mourn his passing.</p> <hr /> <p><em>If you or your family members are currently serving in the US military, please contact the <a href="https://girightshotline.org/">GI Rights Hotline</a> at 1-877-447-4487.</em></p> <div class="footnotes" role="doc-endnotes"> <ol> <li id="fn:1" role="doc-endnote"> <p>In the email, Aaron specified his pronouns as he/him. <a href="#fnref:1" class="reversefootnote" role="doc-backlink">&#8617;</a></p> </li> <li id="fn:2" role="doc-endnote"> <p>It has subsequently been reported that the officer with the gun is a security officer associated with the embassy. We haven’t been able to independently confirm this. <a href="#fnref:2" class="reversefootnote" role="doc-backlink">&#8617;</a></p> </li> </ol> </div> https://crimethinc.com/2024/02/20/the-maidan-diary-of-dmitry-petrov-an-eyewitness-account-of-the-ukrainian-revolution-of-2014 2024-02-20T11:53:11Z 2024-02-28T00:00:36Z The Maidan Diary of Dmitry Petrov : An Eyewitness Account of the Ukrainian Revolution of 2014 An unflinching and critical account from within the demonstrations that toppled the Ukrainian government in 2014, written by a Russian anarchist. <figure><img class="u-photo" alt="" src="https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2024/02/20/header.jpg" /></figure> <p>An unflinching and critical account from within the demonstrations that toppled the Ukrainian government in 2014.</p> <hr /> <p>In November 2013, protests broke out in Kyiv against the government of Viktor Yanukovych, then president of Ukraine, in response to Yanukovych prioritizing economic and diplomatic ties with Russia. Demonstrators occupied <em>Maidan Nezalezhnosti</em> (Independence Square), employing tactics familiar from previous movements in <a href="https://crimethinc.com/2011/02/02/egypt-today-tomorrow-the-world">Egypt</a>, <a href="https://crimethinc.com/2011/06/08/fire-extinguishers-and-fire-starters-anarchist-interventions-in-the-spanish-revolution-an-account-from-barcelona">Spain</a>, and <a href="https://crimethinc.com/2022/06/20/addicted-to-tear-gas-the-gezi-resistance-june-2013-looking-back-on-a-high-point-of-resistance-in-turkey">Turkey</a>. In response, Yanukovych ordered police attacks and the government introduced repressive anti-protest laws. This situation came to a head in February 2014 with clashes in which police killed over a hundred people.<sup id="fnref:1" role="doc-noteref"><a href="#fn:1" class="footnote" rel="footnote">1</a></sup> Yanukovych lost control and fled to Russia; a new government took power in Ukraine, seeking to shift Ukrainian economic and diplomatic ties toward the European Union. In response, Vladimir Putin’s government ordered the seizure of Crimea, precipitated a civil war in eastern Ukraine, and ultimately launched a wholesale <a href="https://crimethinc.com/2022/02/24/russia-and-ukraine-grassroots-resistance-to-putins-invasion">invasion</a> of Ukraine in 2022.</p> <p>The sequence of global uprisings that led up to the Ukrainian revolution had begun with the anarchist-initiated <a href="https://crimethinc.com/2008/12/25/how-to-organize-an-insurrection">insurrection</a> in Greece in December 2008. Over the following five years, this momentum had spread around the world, from the so-called “Arab Spring” and the <a href="https://crimethinc.com/2014/03/12/ukraine-how-nationalists-took-the-lead">Occupy</a> movement to <a href="https://crimethinc.com/2017/06/12/fighting-in-brazil-2013-2015-three-years-of-revolt-repression-and-reaction">Brazil</a> and <a href="https://crimethinc.com/2014/02/18/anarchists-in-the-bosnian-uprising">Bosnia</a>. The uprising in Ukraine drew on some of the same sources of discontent and used many of the same tactics. Yet in Kyiv, fascists established <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20140301180952/https://rusplt.ru/world/nas-jdet-jestkoe-antifashistskoe-protivostoyanie-7696.html">a foothold</a> within the uprising, forcibly <a href="https://crimethinc.com/2014/03/12/ukraine-how-nationalists-took-the-lead">sidelining</a> anarchists.</p> <p>In retrospect, the Ukrainian revolution represented a turning point, introducing a new era in which some of the strategies that had previously been associated with anti-capitalist and anti-authoritarian politics would be adopted by <a href="https://www.liberalcurrents.com/why-movements-fail/">neoliberal</a>, nationalist, and fascist groups with completely different agendas. As we <a href="https://crimethinc.com/2014/03/17/feature-the-ukrainian-revolution-the-future-of-social-movements">argued</a> at the time,</p> <blockquote> <p>The model we have seen in Kyiv opens the way for fascists and other reactionaries to recreate the ruling order within resistance movements—not just by reinserting formal hierarchies and gender roles, but also by confining the substance of the struggle to a clash of armed organizations rather than spreading subversion into every aspect of social relations. Once nationalism is added to this equation, war is not far away.</p> </blockquote> <p>It is not surprising that, once it became clear that these uprisings could overthrow governments, additional political actors got involved, bringing their agendas with them. The question is how anarchist visions of liberation can contend with much better-resourced political forces as the world enters a period of widespread instability.</p> <hr /> <p>One of the participants in the events of February 2014 was <a href="https://crimethinc.com/2023/05/03/in-memory-of-dmitry-petrov-an-incomplete-biography-and-translation-of-his-work">Dmitry Petrov</a>, a twenty-four-year-old anarchist from Moscow. Dmitry had cut his teeth in various anti-fascist, anti-authoritarian, and ecological struggles, founding the <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20161116072503/https://www.blackblocg.info/">Black Blog</a> as a venue in which to report direct action and participating in the Russian protest movement of 2011-2012 in response to the rigged elections that kept Vladimir Putin in power. He traveled to Kyiv in early February, joining <a href="https://discours.io/articles/social/anarchists-on-maidan-protests">other Russian anarchists</a> in supporting Ukrainians as they resisted a government that was aligned with the same autocracy that anarchists were fighting in Russia.<sup id="fnref:2" role="doc-noteref"><a href="#fn:2" class="footnote" rel="footnote">2</a></sup> In the process of participating in the Ukrainian uprising, Dmitry hoped to promote an anarchist vision of liberation.</p> <p>What Dmitry saw in Kyiv was by turns exhilarating and disheartening. In his reports, he documents how militarism, nationalism, and hierarchical organization channeled the movement away from the kinds of profound social change that he sought. At the same time, he retained his faith in the potential of all human beings to collectively self-organize their lives, passionately arguing for solidarity between Russians and Ukrainians in resistance to all forms of oppression. In the face of fascist threats, he did his best to make a space for anarchist proposals in the Maidan protests.</p> <p>Dmitry’s involvement in Ukraine did not end with this diary. Four years after the 2014 revolution, having learned that the Russian secret police were interested in him, Dmitry returned to Kyiv to live in exile. Despite his precarious situation as an expatriate, he continued to put his politics into action: for example, in 2020, anarchists <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20200927065720/https://bo-ak.org/index.php/ru/1/247-podzhog-zdaniya-sledstvennogo-upravleniya-v-kieve">attacked</a> the Investigative Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in Kyiv in solidarity with the <a href="https://crimethinc.com/2020/06/17/snapshots-from-the-uprising-accounts-from-three-weeks-of-countrywide-revolt">George Floyd Uprising</a>. When Russian forces invaded Ukraine in 2022, Dmitry helped to form an “<a href="https://libcom.org/article/four-months-anti-authoritarian-platoon-ukraine">anti-authoritarian platoon</a>” within the territorial defense forces around Kyiv; he was killed in battle in Bakhmut in April 2023. You can learn more about Dmitry’s life <a href="https://crimethinc.com/2023/05/03/in-memory-of-dmitry-petrov-an-incomplete-biography-and-translation-of-his-work">here</a>.</p> <hr /> <p>We have translated and annotated Dmitry’s reports from Kyiv in February 2014 because they represent a valuable document offering insight into historic events, but also because the questions that Dmitry faced that month in Kyiv continue to confront us today. As we <a href="https://crimethinc.com/2014/03/17/feature-the-ukrainian-revolution-the-future-of-social-movements">argued</a> in 2014,</p> <blockquote> <p>We are not simply in a conflict with the state in its present incarnation, but in a three-way fight against it and its authoritarian opponents. The present social order will regenerate itself indefinitely until a form of resistance emerges that is capable of overthrowing governments without replacing them. This is not just a contest of arms; it is a clash between different forms of relations. It is not just a struggle for physical territory, but also for tactics and narratives—for the territory of struggle itself.</p> <p>The fact that these movements can be hijacked by nationalists does not mean that we should remain aloof from them. This was the initial reaction of many anarchists to the plaza occupations in Spain and Occupy in the US, and it could have been disastrous. Standing aside at a moment of popular confrontation with the state permits rival antagonists to seize the initiative, connecting with the general public and defining the stakes.</p> </blockquote> <p>In the years since the Ukrainian Revolution, nationalists and fascists have gained momentum around the world, falsely presenting themselves as rebels against the ruling order even as they seek to impose an even more oppressive version of it. Anarchists and anti-authoritarians have not ceded the terrain of rebellion to them, but nationalists are becoming a dangerous force even in places that were previously associated with left-wing movements. In France, in 2018, the yellow vest movement became a <a href="https://crimethinc.com/2018/12/06/the-movement-as-battleground-fighting-for-the-soul-of-the-yellow-vest-movement">battleground</a> in which anti-authoritarians contended with fascists to represent the alternative to Emmanuel Macron’s neoliberal policies.<sup id="fnref:7" role="doc-noteref"><a href="#fn:7" class="footnote" rel="footnote">3</a></sup> While Dmitry’s experience in the Maidan protests might have appeared to represent a worst-case scenario in 2014, today many of us elsewhere around the world could experience something similar in the not-too-distant future.</p> <p>Thankfully, in the years following the 2014 revolution, fascists failed to secure state power in Ukraine. They did surprisingly badly in subsequent elections, considering the leverage they had wielded in the streets of Kyiv. But in the course of the war that Russia provoked in eastern Ukraine, fascists managed to associate themselves with the Ukrainian military, providing Putin with a facile excuse to order the wholesale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. War offers fascists on all sides fertile soil in which to recruit and promote their mythologies.</p> <p>If the protest movement in Russia in 2012 had succeeded in toppling Putin, the revolution that took place in Ukraine in 2014 might have been part of a wave of real change throughout the region. Even the staunchest reactionary must acknowledge that that would have been preferable to the war that has killed or maimed hundreds of thousands of people. Instead, the movement was crushed in Russia, and only managed to achieve a change of governments in Ukraine, setting the stage for the war that continues today.</p> <p>Anarchists continue to <a href="https://kontradikce.flu.cas.cz/en/online-content/156">debate</a> how best to conceptualize and engage with the war between Russia and Ukraine. There are still anarchist groups active in Ukraine, such as <a href="https://www.solidaritycollectives.org/en/main-page-english/">Solidarity Collectives</a> and <a href="https://assembly.org.ua/">Assembly</a>. Repression has silenced most forms of dissent in Russia; <a href="https://solidarityzone.net/">Solidarity Zone</a> and the <a href="https://wiki.avtonom.org/en/index.php/Anarchist_Black_Cross_Moscow">Moscow Anarchist Black Cross</a> organize to support political prisoners there.</p> <p>This translation is a joint project of English-speaking and Russian-speaking anarchists, a humble effort to promote mutual understanding and collective action on an international basis. We are up against a lot, but together, we can make a difference.</p> <blockquote> <p>“There is a struggle going on inside everyone—on the one hand, the people here have come out to resist the coercion of those in power, but on the other hand, the weight of prejudice, the habit of hierarchical social attitudes, and the vertical structure of society are still very strong and they drag resistance down.”</p> <p>-Dmitry Petrov, in the sixth installment of his Maidan Diary</p> </blockquote> <figure class=""> <img src="https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2024/02/20/13.jpg" /> <figcaption> <p>The police are only one of many obstacles on the road to freedom.</p> </figcaption> </figure> <hr /> <h1 id="i-ukrainian-diary-day-1-kharkiv">I. Ukrainian Diary, Day 1: Kharkiv</h1> <p><em>Published February 7, 2014</em></p> <p>In the early morning of February 7, Kharkiv greeted me with gloomy chill, thorough but futile police inspections, and other hustle. This metropolis of a million and a half people has become a staging post on the way to the capital’s Maidan, which, if all goes well tomorrow, we will report on shortly.</p> <p>After sightseeing, dipping into a subway crowded just like in Moscow, we visited the local Maidan. Near the monument to [famous Ukrainian poet] Taras Shevchenko on a not too frosty but dank February evening, about 200 peaceful citizens had gathered with yellow and blue flags.</p> <p>Having been here, I have to admit that I was surprised that some time ago, there were calls circulating among Moscow anarchists to go to Kharkiv, to local, supposedly promising protest actions. At the moment, things look rather dull and uneventful here, with all due respect to those who are there now, despite the bad weather and the clearly perceptible police pressure. In addition to the state flags, you can see the flag of the fascist party “Svoboda”<sup id="fnref:3" role="doc-noteref"><a href="#fn:3" class="footnote" rel="footnote">4</a></sup> and Tymoshenko’s “Batkivshchyna”<sup id="fnref:4" role="doc-noteref"><a href="#fn:4" class="footnote" rel="footnote">5</a></sup> and, of course, the flag of the European Union. The friendly “svobodites” [members of Svodoba] handed me an issue of their newspaper… They have their own tent in which they raise funds.</p> <figure class=""> <img src="https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2024/02/20/1.jpg" /> </figure> <p>The speakers cannot be heard very well and speak rather softly, in stark contrast to the expressive revolutionary monument to Shevchenko. A banner reading “Down with bloody dictatorship,” in Ukrainian… One can sense the presence of the police; the city in general gives the feeling that the authorities are on guard, and it seems they’re quietly monitoring those who arrive.</p> <p>The Kharkiv Maidan is at an excessively respectful distance from the administrative buildings. There does not seem to be any sign of occupations yet. When we approached the reception area, we could see a patrol of the legendary “titushkas” [mercenaries who supported the Ukrainian security forces during the Yanukovych administration, often posing as street hooligans]—simply stupid and arrogant paid thugs, who even turned their attention to our modest company, but then departed. The entrance to the building is guarded by police, but not a very reinforced squad.</p> <figure class=""> <img src="https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2024/02/20/2.jpg" /> </figure> <p>Tonight, our pilgrimage is supposed to continue. Hopefully without unplanned complications.</p> <p>D.Ch. MPST [“Д.Ч. МПСТ”—these initials stand for Dima Chascshin, one of Dmitry’s many pseudonyms, followed by the initials of the MPST union.]</p> <hr /> <h1 id="ii-ukrainian-diary-day-2-getting-to-know-maidan">II. Ukrainian Diary, Day 2: Getting to Know Maidan</h1> <p><em>Published February 9, 2014</em></p> <p>So the jolting of the top bunk of the train from Kharkiv is behind us. At the exit from the central subway station, Khreshchatyk, we are greeted by massive barricades, stacked with bags of something heavy. Behind them are tents of protesters, bristling with posters and flags. I was reminded of the view outside our Moscow Teatralnaya station, a similar street with a sidewalk of paving stones, a block away from the Red Square… as if it were happening there.</p> <p>The eye is struck by the abundance of black and red banners—but here, these don’t mean the anarcho-communist colors, but rather are meant to remind us of the activities of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists [a far-right group influenced by fascism, involving Stepan Bandera, who worked with the Nazis] half a century ago.</p> <p>The scale of the “rebellious town” on Maidan is staggering. The central street and the central square of Ukraine have in fact been freed from its central authority and are occupied by the protesters (or already rebels?), controlled by their self-defense units. The camp stretches for a kilometer in length. All around are the chimneys of the field kitchens and heated living tents. There is something of a Cossack camp in this picture.</p> <p>There are blue and yellow flags everywhere, and party symbols as well: mainly “Batkivschyna,” “Svoboda,” “Spilna Pravda”… to put it tactfully, these guys are not close to us ideologically.</p> <p>Everywhere, the <em>sotni</em>—or “hundreds,” the Maidan’s self-defense units—are marching around combatively. People with clubs, wearing masks and sometimes gas masks or military-style clothes, make a rather intimidating and repulsive impression, but at the same time, they are pleasing to the eye, in that they create a clear sense that the state’s monopoly on violence no longer applies here. Bravado and ostentatious militarism are juxtaposed here with the difficult but honorable need for direct confrontation with the repressive structures of the state.</p> <p>The hustle and bustle of the “rebellious town” gives way to crowds of tourists and tense groups of volunteers closer to Grushevsky Street, where the slippery asphalt is covered with black ash and the air reeks of soot. Here stands the entrance to the Dynamo stadium, which in recent weeks has been all over the world in the news. It is covered with scorch marks.</p> <p>All the passages between the barricades are blocked by vigilantes. Ordinary mortals are not allowed in, only the “certified” self-defense participants. Further on, there are two more forward barricades, and behind them, there are lines of Berkut [Ukrainian riot police]. On the front line, among Ukrainian and Bandera flags, the flags of [the separatist Chechen Republic of] Ichkeria and the European Union hang side by side—this scene brilliantly illustrates the ideological eclecticism of the Maidan.</p> <figure class=""> <img src="https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2024/02/20/3.jpg" /> </figure> <p>Through our comrades, we get acquainted with local anarchists and sympathizers. We are slowly getting oriented. We fit into one of several tents occupied by anarchists.</p> <p>There is now a lively discussion among our like-minded comrades about creating their own hundred as part of the self-defense of the Maidan, and about other anarchist initiatives on the Maidan. Many comrades are concerned that the creation of an “official” hundred could bind anarchists with obligations to the unelected bodies of the “Maidan government,” while others, on the contrary, emphasize that this government is nominal, collegial, and more or less horizontal.</p> <p>We have not yet been able to formulate our own opinion about all these “people’s militias,” “tax police,” “ministries,” and “headquarters” on the Maidan. One thing is certain: there are quite a few people who want to gain power within the movement without burdening themselves with any democratic procedures. At the same time, the predominantly spontaneous nature of everything that is going on is preventing the implementation of these plans.</p> <p>But spontaneity rarely lasts, so it seems to me that either everything will shift towards the vertical and the imperious lawless power of the Maidan “security officials” and “leaders,” or it will be possible to create a structured and well-ordered horizontal self-government.</p> <p>Anarchists are represented on the Maidan, although much less visible than in the Moscow anti-Putin movement a year and a half ago (note that the Ukrainian protest movement is in all respects much more serious than the Russian movement; we must catch up to it and surpass it).</p> <p>There are a number of problems. First, it is quite noticeable that the focus of many protesters is to “make things the way they are in Europe”; it is difficult to explain to such people anything about other ways of socio-economic organization. Second, there are a lot of nationalists here. This can be seen in everything: in the symbols, the graffiti, the costumes of many Maidan activists, and in the number of times that you will hear “Glory to Ukraine!” while walking along the Maidan.</p> <p>At the same time, we must understand that apart from the aggressive supporters of the “strong hand” that is creating total Ukrainization, the broad conglomerate of Ukrainian nationalists includes people of more reasonable views, perhaps even those who do not fit the definition of a “nationalist.” As my comrade rightly noted, “the worst ones here are the respectable nationalists, like Svoboda.”</p> <figure class=""> <img src="https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2024/02/20/4.jpg" /> <figcaption> <p>“On the front line, among Ukrainian and Bandera flags, the flags of [the separatist Chechen Republic of] Ichkeria and the European Union hang side by side—this scene brilliantly illustrates the ideological eclecticism of the Maidan.” By contrast, the second image shows the black flag of the anarchists over the “Vilniy Namet.”</p> </figcaption> </figure> <p>Despite these problems, anarchists clearly have the opportunity to prove themselves as a worthwhile force, and the spontaneous and anti-authoritarian vector of the protest movement is also created by external conditions that are not favorable, but also far from hopeless for our libertarian cause.</p> <p>D.Ch. MPST</p> <hr /> <h1 id="iii-ukrainian-diary-day-3-peoples-veche-assembly-and-fascist-flexing-on-the-maidan">III. Ukrainian Diary, Day 3: People’s Veche [Assembly] and Fascist Flexing on the Maidan</h1> <p><em>Published February 11, 2014</em></p> <p>Yesterday (February 9) on Kiev’s Independence Square was marked first and foremost by the “People’s Assembly” [<em>veche,</em> council], which is held weekly on Sundays. At the appointed hour, the square was filled with a significant number of protesters: between 100,000 and 300,000 people. This was considerably more than the number that is constantly present on the Maidan. All of them were listening to what was happening on the big stage. Getting ahead of ourselves, we note that, in fact, the <em>veche</em> was not much different from the 100,000-strong anti-Putin rallies in Russia, where the public similarly swallowed the speeches of well-promoted “opposition leaders.”</p> <p>I was surprised by the clerical introduction. The presenter of the rally, in a spiritual voice, said that the clerics were going to speak. Thus, the party was preceded by speeches by hierarchs of varying degrees of severity [the author is being ironic] from the Ukrainian Autocephalous Church, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Kyiv Patriarchate), the Greek Catholic Church (Uniates), the Church of Evangelical Christian Baptists, and Muslims. The clerics spoke in roughly the above order.</p> <p>The first three, representatives of traditional mass faiths, spoke decorously, reminding us of the approaching Lent, calling for peace, while at the same time blessing the protesters. The Pentecostalist preached a heated sermon, reminding us that sinful government had been given to the people for their sins, but now it was time, having been cleansed of their sins, to give it a reversal. The mullah even directly declared that the Muslims of Ukraine, represented primarily by the Crimean Tatars, had been standing with the Maidan since the first days of the protest.</p> <p>This was followed by the chanting of the “spiritual anthem of Ukraine.” At the same time that one of the speeches was taking place, a line of people with open umbrellas marched through the crowd… some of the umbrellas were not the most puritanical: they were painted with pictures of people kissing or were black with pink ribbons. For a moment, I thought that this was an anti-clerical action, and that the umbrellas were intended as a way of shielding the minds of those present from the endless stream of divine grace. It turned out that it was more prosaic than that: a demonstration of solidarity with the Russian opposition TV channel Dozhd.</p> <p>Without getting into long “analytical” arguments, I will only say that seeing such an accentuated interest in the opinion of the “spiritual authorities” left little pleasant emotion in my heart; on the other hand, it strongly suggests that despite the “course towards the EU,” Ukraine’s political culture is still quite distant from European culture. Still, it is impossible not to note the unity of representatives of such different religious branches in the face of this struggle against the authorities. On the other side of the spiritual barricade in Ukraine is the Moscow Patriarchate of Russian Orthodox Church.</p> <p>Next came a speech by the opposition establishment. There were the “Napoleons” [heavyweight boxer Vitali] Klitschko, [Svoboda leader Oleh] Tyahnybok, and [politician Arseniy] Yatsenyuk [who became prime minister only a few days later, following the revolution], as well as a number of other “celebrities” who, unfortunately, are little known to the author of these lines.</p> <p>In addition to purely rhetorical passages, the speeches contained a standard set of appeals. The audience was invited to strive towards Europe (as if “European integration” would be a great victory for the Ukrainian people, and not for European capital, which wants to use these people for its own profit). Everyone was urged to join the ranks of the Maidan self-defense fighters; apparently, the honorable candidates see this formation as a bargaining chip in the forthcoming political battles—I would like to see them disappointed.</p> <p>They called for obedience to the leaders. They declared that a return to the constitution of 2004 would be the best solution of the current political crisis, and, of course, they villified the “Donetsk bandit.”<sup id="fnref:5" role="doc-noteref"><a href="#fn:5" class="footnote" rel="footnote">6</a></sup> The figures of the speech about Ukraine as “an outpost of Europe in the Third Cold War” and so on sometimes produced astonishment and a bitterly ironic state of mind. Almost every speaker began and ended his or her speech with the cry “Glory to Ukraine!” which prompted the unanimous response: “Glory to Heroes!”—a slogan that has traditionally been associated with the Ukrainian Insurgent Army.</p> <p>An eclectic mix of nationalism (often not at all the “respectable and civil” kind) and Westernism is a characteristic feature of the Maidan. Against this sad background, I appreciated the speech of a representative of the “Automaidan” [a self-organized group using vehicles in the protests], Volodymyr Yavorski, who refrained from making eulogies to power-hungry opposition figures and from relishing European and constitutional illusions, but simply urged people to continue to persistently struggle for their rights and interests against those who oppress and humiliate them.</p> <p>Among the juicy things, we should mention the rhetoric of the nationalist Tyahnybok about the alliance of Ukraine with the Western world and the forthcoming entry of the country into the IMF… What a marvel! What would Tyahnybok’s Western like-minded brothers, who burn EU flags at all their major events, have to say about this?</p> <figure class=""> <img src="https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2024/02/20/5.jpg" /> <figcaption> <p>A Banderist flag; religious leaders addressing the mass assembly; helmets in the Maidan, one of which is adorned with a sticker depicting Nestor Makhno.</p> </figcaption> </figure> <p>In general, the <em>veche</em> [assembly] left a rather depressing impression. First of all, because of the generally loyal attitude of the participants to all the bad things outlined above and to the elite figures of the opposition as such. But even more so because this is not a real “veche” at all, but the same “communist” rally akin to those at which people chanted “Glory to the CPSU!”—where only the elite can speak, and all the “pawns” are offered ready-made opinions and instructions on how to behave.</p> <p>There is a clear need to organize a horizontal structure of protest self-government, a real <em>veche.</em> The well-known Moscow variant of Occupy Abay with one general assembly (involving, according to the most ambitious estimates, up to 4000 people) will not work here, among hundreds of thousands—obviously, we need a network of assemblies that coordinate their decisions and actions through delegates with instructions from the collective that nominated them. And the podium, of course, must be open to all, and obviously there should not be just one. Otherwise, we are inevitably dealing with an elitist and authoritarian way of organizing the protest movement, and the fruits of such a movement are unlikely to be sweet.</p> <p>I have certain hopes associated with the fact that the “leaders” have already repeatedly proven themselves to be traitors, only now undertaking to be “uncompromising” to please the mood of the Maidan. Perhaps the situation with the permanent betrayal of the self-appointed spokesmen for the people’s will itself will prompt the Maidan fighters to seek other ways of fighting and fresh ideas. On the good news, the credibility of the loudmouths from the TV is not very high among the natives of Independence Square.</p> <h2 id="svolota">Svolota</h2> <p>[This is a world play on the name of the “Svoboda” party; <em>svolota</em> means “scum.”]</p> <p>As it turned out later, this was not the most emotionally charged event of the day. In the evening, for the first time, we experienced the aggression of the fascists here. The youngsters of the odious Svolota tried to show the world the wonders of Aryan valor in an organized manner, with clubs, helmets, bulletproof vests and in numerical majority. Approaching the group of anarchists, the idiots started threatening and showing off.</p> <p>It got no further than a verbal confrontation, but standing unarmed in front of the clubs was not very pleasant, to put it mildly. Also surprising is the inability/unwillingness of the Maidan “security office” to stop such actions on the part of the scum, as this is not the first time it has happened. In addition, this incident was a good illustration of the “truce” between forces participating in the Maidan revolution that are hostile to each other.</p> <p>Д. Ch. MPST</p> <hr /> <h1 id="iv-ukrainian-diary-day-3-maidan-life">IV. Ukrainian Diary, Day 3: Maidan Life</h1> <p><em>Published February 11, 2014</em></p> <p>Having interrupted the daily chronicle, I want to write a few words about the everyday life of the protesters on the Maidan. Walking behind the barricades in the center of Kiev, you find yourself in a natural “rebel town.” Everywhere there are insulated military hiking tents, equipped with stoves and gasoline-powered generators. This is where the natives of Maidan live—those who are on the watch for the struggle around the clock. In addition, many people come here every day to gawk and/or protest…</p> <p>Inside the camping tents, you can see crudely made bunks, tables for meals, various nooks with stacked things, in particular clothes collected by volunteers to help the Maidan fighters. There is a lot of firewood stacked inside and around the tents, as the wood stoves consume a lot of fuel. Outside, you can see smoke billowing from the chimneys of the protestors’ tents. Some of the tents are capacious, others are smaller, and sometimes there aren’t enough sleeping places, so we have to put polystyrene foam or jackets on the benches and floor, which is the asphalt of Khreshchatyk [the main street of Kyiv], sometimes covered with plywood or planks, and sometimes completely bare.</p> <p>During the day, Maidan is filled with shops selling souvenirs or ice cream (or, alternatively, mulled wine). Smart businessmen have already started producing magnets and badges with Euromaidan symbols. There are also many “patriotic” cups and scarves on sale, and balaclavas for self-defense fighters or simply for showing off.</p> <p>There are also field kitchens. There are quite a few of them. Several teams of volunteers prepare food and tea and distribute them free of charge to everyone. True, the food is mostly meat, which for us anarchists is a significant disadvantage. Medical aid stations have also been established.</p> <p>A separate topic—the local toilets. Unfortunately, the relatively small number of public toilets on Independence Square and Khreshchatyk are clearly unable to serve so many people, so they are in a deplorable condition and using them is a torture, and every day more difficult. It is a pleasure to visit the restroom at one of the nearby cafés.</p> <figure class=""> <img src="https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2024/02/20/6.jpg" /> </figure> <p>Another story is the Ukraine House. Nowadays it is a real cultural center—there is a library, a hall for film screenings and lectures, many of which are very interesting (they are organized by the “Free University,” and everyone can suggest their own topic of lecture or film). There is a free-of-charge buffet in the basement and an exhibition of paintings on captured Berkut [Ukrainian riot police] shields, perhaps the best thing in contemporary art at the moment. There is a phone recharging spot and much more.</p> <p>In general, an atmosphere of permanent creative energy reigns in the House. Even the restroom is quite civilized here. And therefore, it’s no coincidence that yesterday (February 9), when there was a conflict between representatives of various self-defense groups, false information was spread on fascist platforms that “Somebody came to take out the anarchists”—these morons can sense that something is going on here that is the exact opposite of their entire existence.</p> <figure class=""> <img src="https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2024/02/20/7.jpg" /> <figcaption> <p>A barricade; an exhibition at the Ukraine House displaying paintings on shields captured from the Berkut, the Ukrainian riot police; a banner reading “Putin—out [sic] bloody hands from Ukraine!”</p> </figcaption> </figure> <p>In general, two paradoxical phenomena coexist in this “rebel town.” After a long period of inactivity, the Maidan camp is slowly stewing in its own juice, “rotting” in the incessant management of everyday affairs, and gradually getting bored. Conflicts arise on this basis, too. Besides, such places like a magnet attract all sorts of outsiders and weirdos, who spoil the picture, and in general do not contribute anything good to the atmosphere.</p> <p>At the same time, something completely opposite is happening here as well. People around here show their initiative in the directions they like: some cook, some build, some educate, some fight—and this is a vibrant productive life activity, as Erich Fromm would probably characterize it.</p> <p>I would hope that the second tendency will always prevail over the first. But for it to do so, one must surely continue to press forward and advance toward the true goal of it all: emancipation. We must admit that there are those who see their vocation here not as productive activity, but as commanding and ruling. Unfortunately, these people are also very active and are trying to accomplish their goals, at times with some success—by the way, they differ quite a lot from those who are engaged in genuine organizing and coordinating activities. As a result, the life of the Maidan has already become covered with a fair amount of bureaucratic mold, and the newly-minted “bosses” and “security” are at times creating significant hindrance to normal existence.</p> <p>In conclusion, one cannot fail to mention the memorials to those killed in the battles with the Berkut. These symbols and monuments of tragedy and selflessness can be found near one of the front barricades on Grushevsky street, as well as on the Maidan itself.</p> <p>D.Ch.MPST</p> <hr /> <h1 id="v-ukrainian-diary-days-4-and-5-the-life-of-the-student-assembly-and-the-everyday-life-of-the-revolution">V. Ukrainian Diary, Days 4 and 5: The Life of the Student Assembly and the Everyday Life of the Revolution</h1> <p><em>Published February 13, 2014</em></p> <p>The day before yesterday (February 10) passed in some confusion and bustle. We addressed organizational issues, held a meeting of the anarchists active on the Maidan, and made organizational plans (out of superstition, I will tell you about the plans only as they come to fruition). Then we settled into our new place of residence and struggle—in the liberated Ukraine House—in the Student Assembly, an island of libertarian thought and activity on the Maidan.</p> <p>The guys from the Assembly are active 24 hours a day; they maintain a cell phone charging station, and organize film screenings and discussions. It is the Assembly that organizes a very important and noble initiative of standing guard in hospitals, where victims of police violence on Grushevsky Street are treated and who, as participants in the popular uprising, face the risk of arrest and, at best, government bunk beds instead of a hospital bunk. These arrests and kidnappings are carried out secretly at night, in violation of all procedural norms and laws. That is why the presence of volunteers standing guard and the direct obstruction of the actions of the cops has already saved several people from the unpredictable consequences of an illegal arrest. Life in the Student Assembly is in full swing, and we must give credit for the hospitality and cordiality of our comrades toward us.</p> <p>One sad thing—there are a lot of tough guys in balaclavas and armor constantly poking around the building of the Ukraine House, keeping the place in order, so to speak. On the one hand, it is important to keep this a sober space, to drive provocateurs and troublemakers away. But on the other hand, to periodically see two tough guys in masks dragging some crying girl or a sad young man by the arms is very unpleasant. The newly-minted cops (at least, many of them) are extremely rude and boorish, and anyone who inquires as to what the person being dragged away has done will be answered, at best: “No one asked you!” or “Shut up, or you’ll be next!”</p> <p>These guys like to look menacing and wave around their “security” credentials, etc. It is curious and at the same time bitter to see how the long-established phenomenon “power corrupts” is playing out yet again without any noticeable resistance. It seems that many of these guys, the “people’s policemen,” who have a very big responsibility to keep order but not to turn into repressive beasts, are often committed to a profound sense of their own greatness and quickly get a taste for power. In the future, this will undoubtedly give rise to even greater problems.</p> <p>All in all, thanks to such incidents, a rather aggressive atmosphere prevails in the House and on the Maidan as a whole. To say “the rule of force” would be an exaggeration, but it is true that force has a greater place than it should here when it comes to internal issues.</p> <figure class=""> <img src="https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2024/02/20/8.jpg" /> <figcaption> <p>A painting on a shield captured from the Ukrainian riot police, displayed at the Ukraine House; scenes from the Student Assembly and the Ukraine House.</p> </figcaption> </figure> <p>In addition to the “police,” there are many other working groups operating in the Ukraine House to keep things running smoothly here and to help people on the Maidan: a medical station and team, people on shift and cooks in the canteen, there is also a “chapel” made of cardboard strips with rather strange priests, one of whom has already been escorted out for not being who he claimed he was, and another had just tortured a puppy who entered the sacred territory, he was whining a lot—the power was taken away with a scandal—fortunately, the student assembly was just behind a cardboard ceiling. Electricians and plumbers also can be encountered here, since household malfunctions are common.</p> <p>D.Ch. MPST</p> <hr /> <h1 id="vi-ukrainian-diary-days-6-and-7-a-story-from-moscow-anarchists-about-the-protests-in-russia-at-the-vilna-free-school-in-the-ukraine-house-an-anarchist-section-in-the-maidan-library">VI. Ukrainian Diary, Days 6 and 7: A Story from Moscow Anarchists about the Protests in Russia at the Vilna (Free) School in the Ukraine House, an Anarchist Section in the Maidan Library</h1> <p><em>Published February 13, 2014</em></p> <p>Perhaps the most significant event for us on February 12 was our collective presentation as part of the Free School, which was set aside in the evening in the main hall of the Ukraine House. We told the audience (more than fifty people) about the mass protest campaign against United Russia (the ruling party) and Putin in 2011-2012 and the “Bolotnaya Square Case.”<sup id="fnref:6" role="doc-noteref"><a href="#fn:6" class="footnote" rel="footnote">7</a></sup></p> <p>The main idea we wanted to convey to our listeners was that the protest should be organized on a horizontal basis. Ironically, despite the differences between the Russian movement and the Ukrainian insurgency, we too have something to share with our Slavic brothers. Even the notorious “coordination council” of the opposition was elected in our country, while here many executive (security and self-defense) posts are appointed from above: either by opposition parliamentary parties, or self-appointed, according to the principle of “he who dares, eats.” These quasi-officials are not accountable to the ordinary Maidan activists, including those who are constantly on the barricades, in the square, and in the Ukraine House. At the same time, their powers are much broader than those possessed by the Opposition Council in Russia. Needless to say, this situation undermines resistance to Yanukovich’s authoritarianism.</p> <p>Our message was as follows: the people of Ukraine, who have already shown themselves to be staunch opponents of tyranny, must not be satisfied with simply putting the boots of new oppressors on their necks in place of the old ones. We spoke about our experience of holding people’s assemblies during the “standing” <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011%E2%80%932013_Russian_protests">demonstrations</a> on Chistye Prudy and Barrikadnaya in Moscow. We also drew attention to some curious differences in the political realities of Russia and Ukraine. In particular, there are no parties in the Russian parliament that even remotely resemble the real opposition to the party in power. Paradoxically, we are “more fortunate” in this respect, since representative institutions and political parties in Russia seem to inspire less trust. We received a warm welcome, and many fervently supported us, while others argued with our egalitarian position, voicing common misconceptions about the inevitability of social hierarchies and the “impossibility” of organizing society along different lines. There is a struggle going on inside everyone—on the one hand, the people here have come out to resist the coercion of those in power, but on the other hand, the weight of prejudice, the habit of hierarchical social attitudes, and the vertical structure of society are still very strong and they drag resistance down.</p> <figure class="video-container "> <iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/On9ZlFycEXw" frameborder="0" gesture="media" allow="encrypted-media" allowfullscreen=""></iframe> <figcaption class="caption video-caption video-caption-youtube"> <p>Dmitry speaking at the Ukraine House (UkrDom) during the Maidan, in February 2014. At this meeting, Dima spoke about the experiences of Russian protesters, drew parallels between the liberation struggle in both countries, and proposed the idea of people’s power as an alternative to vertically organized power represented by professional politicians.</p> </figcaption> </figure> <p>After several days of negotiations with the Maidan library and with our comrades in Kyiv, on February 13, we managed to organize a “free shelf” in the library of the Ukraine House. There are anarchist periodicals and theoretical pamphlets, something on ecology, and works by such leftist philosophers as Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, Guy Debord, and others. We would welcome any infusion of libertarian literature into our library sector. So far, there has been very little…</p> <p>Life in the “rebellious town” is still stagnating; no one has gone to block the Rada [the Ukrainian parliament] today, but the expiration of Yanukovich’s ultimatum on February 17 promises to bring a fresh wave.</p> <p>D.Ch. MPST</p> <figure class=""> <img src="https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2024/02/20/9.jpg" /> <figcaption> <p>Anarchist graffiti; the anarchist section in the library of the Ukraine House.</p> </figcaption> </figure> <hr /> <h1 id="vii-ukrainian-diary-valentines-day-on-maidan">VII. Ukrainian Diary: Valentine’s Day on Maidan</h1> <p><em>Published February 15, 2014</em></p> <p>Today (February 14) went by in a fairly ordinary mode: that is, it consisted of the same thousand little things as usual.</p> <p>The “romantic” flair created around Valentine’s Day filled the Maidan, too, with a special sound: cute girls were seen handing out Valentine’s cards to boys, as well as dandies with bouquets of flowers. Valentine’s cards (see below) demand to keep up with expectations. Of course, the cohabitation of many representatives of both sexes over a long period of time inevitably leads to a variety of interactions, which isn’t without its anecdotes but also downright nasty stories… but then again, that’s just the cultural background of our fellow countrymen. Eastern Europe style, as they say…</p> <p>However, the cupids were not fluttering everywhere. Yesterday, the freaks from Svolota showed themselves again: waiting for a moment when only one person was left standing watch at the anarchist section of the barricades, they arrived in a gang, waving knives… and began to paint over the anarchist graffiti. In all likelihood, this kindergarten shows the most we can expect of the Svolota “youth.”</p> <p>D.Ch. MPST</p> <hr /> <h1 id="viii-ukrainian-diary-maidan-kitchen">VIII. Ukrainian Diary: Maidan kitchen</h1> <p><em>Published February 16, 2014</em></p> <p>On the night of February 14-15, I decided to satisfy my civic sense and take a shift in the kitchen. It was probably one of the most interesting things I’ve done in my time here. The kitchen is always short of volunteers, and the vast majority of those who work there are women. During my shift, the gender ratio was about 4:1, which is more balanced than it usually is.</p> <p>Feeding the awakened (in the political sense) people is, to put it bluntly, not easy. The kitchen functions on the account of ready-made food brought in as well as food allocated from the revolution’s reserves, which is obviously made up of donations and/or sponsorships. Even at night there are plenty of people who want something to eat, so the whole kitchen and buffet, with a total of fifteen to twenty people on shift, is in assembly line mode.</p> <p>At the same time, many representatives of the awakened people do not burden themselves—neither with gratitude, nor with basic politeness. Moreover, many of the guys in the queue simply can’t think of anything better to do than to flirt insistently with the girls at the counter, which I soon got sick of, and that became an additional lesson that the revolution in consciousness should go hand in hand with the social revolution. Fortunately (or not?), the catering sorceresses themselves perceive this situation more simply. Generally speaking, as someone who has never really gone in for hyper-feminism, I can testify that the issue of discrimination against women here is real: there are problems involving rudeness, the redistribution of dirty work to women, their exclusion from participating in self-defense, and harassment.</p> <figure class=""> <img src="https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2024/02/20/10.jpg" /> <figcaption> <p>Valentine’s Day on Maidan; pot washing.</p> </figcaption> </figure> <p>Some time after we started our kitchen work, a disgruntled woman (some local low-ranking “boss”) showed up and started demanding to be told who was using a megaphone to invite volunteers to the kitchen from the residential floor. Not that anyone there was particularly asleep at that moment, but the folks at headquarters gave her a hard time, and now she was there to take her anger further down the hierarchical ladder. However, one of the guys gave her a worthy rebuke, saying that the principle “The boss punishes you, then you punish a subordinate” is somehow inappropriate in revolutionary territory.</p> <p>Soon, they began to recruit a group to carry food to the front barricades. Only the self-defense squads on duty are allowed to be there; no ordinary protesters or bystanders are allowed. Women are not allowed on the front barricades. Those handing out food are escorted through the cordons by a security guard. When I was a “mere mortal” and did not have access to the front lines, I could not have imagined that there was such an extensive system of front barricades near Dynamo Stadium—we walked around seven, each guarded by a squad on duty.</p> <p>In the darkness of the night, slowly going from post to post, there was indeed an atmosphere of wartime. The inhabitants here, in turn, are not at all soccer hooligans or rebellious students, but grown men, perhaps with war experience. I can’t help but appreciate that everything is organized so seriously.</p> <p>However, this situation also has a drawback, perhaps more significant than its advantages. The presence of professional (or quasi-professional) military men inevitably means the collapse of any kind of democracy in the movement, since, by decision of their commanders, these people can impose this or that order on everyone else in an organized way by force. In addition, according to my subjective feelings, these people are unlike those who came here at the call of the idea, and even if I am wrong, their values and goals most likely have little in common with mine. A thick atmosphere of the right of force, the power of a man with a gun (or club) hung there. This is a problem that requires reflection and solution. The contradiction, the conflict between the “military” and “civilian” Maidan, is very clear.</p> <p>D.Ch. MPST</p> <hr /> <h1 id="ix-ukrainian-diary-february-15-and-16-is-the-troubling-calm-nearing-an-end">IX. Ukrainian Diary, February 15 and 16: Is the Troubling Calm Nearing an End?</h1> <p><em>Published February 17, 2014</em></p> <p>After the Maidan kitchen, I woke up late. It was February 15, the situation with available places to stay over for the night was bad and it was time to take a public shower in the Ukraine House… too bad there was no public laundry or public shoe deodorant. The wifi was no better than the hygiene situation, so I hurried off in search of a network, leaving my things, as usual, in the Student Assembly.</p> <p>Imagine my surprise when, on my return, I found the entrance to the House blocked off by people in helmets and armor and with batons—“self-defense” men. Everyone was told that the building was being evacuated, but that they would soon let everyone in for half an hour to pack up. The situation got very uncomfortable. Then a tough man in camouflage ordered, through a megaphone, that everyone should form a column of four people at the foot of the stairs. And then… everyone was told that it was a drill, and that our preparedness for defense is shit, and that from now on everyone must obey the orders of the men in camouflage unquestioningly and in an organized manner.</p> <p>In some ways, I was relieved. We were allowed to get our belongings, and the frantic question of where to spend the night was no longer an issue. In general, the actions of some especially quick and arrogant power-hungry politicians, as well as the aggressive men, create an oppressive feeling of powerlessness and alienation from the revolutionary movement. This situation has long been in need of resolution. Rumors have been circulating everywhere that soon the Svolota will come to evict the Ukraine House, and it will be necessary to hold the defense.</p> <p>For the evening film screening, the choice was “The Dictator” [presumably the 2012 film by Sacha Baron Cohen]—we laughed heartily and the audience was delighted. It’s funny that the security office did not revoke the Student Assembly’s right to organize screenings.</p> <p>February 16 came, and with it, the Sunday “veche”—hundreds of thousands of people and politicians sloganeering. Everything is the same as last Sunday. The “peaceful offensive” on the administrative buildings, which many had discussed, did not take place. The fascist Tyahnybok was calling for everyone to carry out what had been planned for Tuesday. But that same evening, Svolota once again demonstrated its traitorous nature. The authorities demanded the release of the building of the Kyiv City Hall (the city state administration) in exchange for the release of political prisoners. Contrary to the opinion of a significant number of protesters, the opposition establishment arbitrarily decided to hand over city hall to the authorities.</p> <p>And at the moment, the Svolota scum, numbering several hundred people armed with batons and shields, are blocking the entrance to the Kyiv City State Administration to the rest of the protesters. In all likelihood, the fascist traitors intend to hand over the building, which was occupied in fierce clashes, to the oppressors in the morning.</p> <figure class=""> <img src="https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2024/02/20/14.jpg" /> <figcaption> <p>The Syrian opposition flag on Maidan; Svolota does the work of the police at city hall.</p> </figcaption> </figure> <p>D.Ch. MPST</p> <hr /> <h1 id="x-ukrainian-diary-culmination">X. Ukrainian Diary: Culmination</h1> <p><em>Published February 20, 2014</em></p> <p>Actually, the diary is already over. I write these lines following the fading traces of memory, sitting in a soft armchair and sipping Borjomi in Moscow. I am ashamed that I am here, and many people who have already become significant to me are there. I can only justify myself with the fact that I did not leave there out of fear. Really.</p> <p>The morning of February 18, the day for which Ukraine is now in mourning, was warm and sunny like spring. It was the second day after the end of the ultimatum demanding that the seized buildings be given up and the barricades dismantled. Yeah, sure. The truce was over.</p> <p>It was also the day that parliament was supposed to begin its session. Therefore, in the morning, a column of protesters headed towards the Rada building from Maidan Nezalezhnosti along Institutskaya street. The approaches to it were blocked by the Berkut and the alleys were blocked by trucks (just like at similar marches in Moscow). We in the Ukraine House were taking a lot of time to get ready. In the meantime, it entered a state of siege.</p> <p>The self-defense forces said that they would only let people out before lunch, but not let anyone in. The windows of the ground floor were taken out in order to make additional barricades. Rumors were spread that Berkut and domestic troops would go on the offensive. From the porch of the Ukraine House, we had a good view of the barricade on Grushevsky street, and we could see that clouds of black smoke were beginning to rise from burning tires. Surprisingly, this was in harmony with the mood of this bright spring day.</p> <p>Finally, we went to Institutskaya street. We arrived at the very moment when the crowd of protesters was emerging from their stagnation and slowly starting to move. Berkut’s snipers had settled comfortably on the roof of one of the houses, and the main forces of cops, bristling with shields, formed a “turtle” [a defensive formation]. People broke up the pavement, prepared Grushevsky cocktails, pulled on their respirators and gauze bandages; those who had gas masks donned them. It has begun…</p> <figure class=""> <img src="https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2024/02/20/11.jpg" /> <figcaption> <p>The sign reads “You are beautiful!!! I love you!”</p> </figcaption> </figure> <p>Let’s try without great poetics, but in essence. This may be useful when you happen to be in a similar situation, dear reader.</p> <p>It is important to use your fear: so that it helps you to avoid getting into certain troubles, but does not flow into panic and flight. Personally, I had an incessant fear that a bullet or a grenade would hit me. I have long known that I am far from being a daredevil, and I say that without a hint of coquetry. Now, for the first time, I became interested in the essence of such a feeling as courage. What is it, anyway? Fear forced me to stay closer to people, not to stick out too much, not to run out in front of the crowd. There was a petty feeling: there are a great number of us here, the chance that they will shoot at me is small. I had this childish feeling: “Wow, I am inside the riot! Just like I saw it on TV! I gotta do something crazy!”</p> <p>But that was the least of it. Next to fear, there was a feeling similar to emptiness—a silent obligation to stay and act. It is almost never formulated verbally. It just is. Maybe courage is just about that? Further, it is important to begin to act meaningfully, and not just to stand or stupidly rush back and forth.</p> <p>Here, the first stones are flying, the first bullets of the cops and flash-bang grenades… Screams can be heard: the battle cry.</p> <p>At that moment, the sound of bagpipes rings out: the rebel song “Ribbon by Ribbon”—one of the big hits here. At this moment, I truly understood the meaning of the war musicians of the past: the martial tune puts you in a state of warlike trance, imbues you with a sense of the greatness of the moment, the need to show courage. Isn’t that why we love walking around with a music player, because the endless beautiful soundtrack gives some meaning to the gray of everyday life and routine? When great things are happening, the soundtrack is even more appropriate.</p> <p>Next, let’s take things point by point:</p> <ol> <li> <p>The stupidest thing to do is to stand there in a daze and wait for something to happen. At first, most protesters do just that. A sure way to just catch the cops’ “gifts” without doing any good. In addition, the crowds prevent the rapid movement of groups of active people. The only conditional benefit is the creation of a sense of mass participation. I think that a huge crowd will reduce the cops’ eagerness to go on the attack. I’m not 100% sure about that, though. So the harm from useless hanging around is concrete, and the benefit is ephemeral.</p> </li> <li> <p>When throwing a rock, it’s important to look behind you. There have been cases of people swinging and hitting their own comrades standing nearby. It is even more important to understand that you should throw a stone only when you are in one of the front rows. There were emotional characters who threw stones in euphoria from the very thick of the crowd. As a result, the stones landed on their own front rows. I hope none of the guys got serious head injuries.</p> </li> <li> <p>Shields can protect against rubber bullets and water cannon jets. Shields can be taken from the riot police or made at home out of plywood or sheet metal. They are held by the comrades in the first row, covering the others. Shields can also be used to make sorties when a group of comrades move forward, the first three or four people cover them with shields, while they throw rocks or cocktails or push tires into the fire.</p> </li> <li> <p>Speaking of burning tires. Their role is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, piling up burning tires prevents the cops from charging, and the smoke prevents the cops’ snipers from aiming at precise targets. It is no coincidence that the water cannon was directed primarily against the tires. But they are not so easy to extinguish once they have burst into flames. On the other hand, the tires also prevent the demonstrators from moving forward if they have the opportunity to attack.</p> </li> </ol> <p>So the battle broke out. Soon several brave guys climbed onto the roof from which the Berkut officers were shooting and throwing grenades, and the cops had to retreat. This caused great excitement and was a major tactical victory.</p> <figure class=""> <img src="https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2024/02/20/12.jpg" /> </figure> <p>Soon riot police swooped in from the opposite alley and temporarily split the crowd of protesters in two, but after a few moments they were driven away, so much so that several cops were pinned against the barricade and taken prisoner. They were taken toward Maidan, while the especially hot-headed guys who were trying to lynch them were kept away.</p> <p>Several more times, the waves of the Berkut and the people crashed upon each other in turn. The first seriously wounded people appeared, and people from the volunteer medical squad helped them as much as they could.</p> <p>At this point, the childishness faded away, giving way to the desire not to embarrass myself, but also not to get shot or hit by a grenade. I happened to escort one wounded man from the front line to the doctors, he turned to me: his eye was not visible and there was blood coming out of his eye socket, pouring over almost half of his face: “Oko tsilo?” (“Is the eye intact?”) he asked… I told him everything would be fine, we just needed to get to the doctors. I hope I was right. “Oko” is an archaic word for us, a poetic word, whereas in Ukrainian it just means eye, and this bloody eye made me sober up.</p> <p>Then there were reports of dozens of people killed. It’s terrible, but I can’t feel the pain of these people and their loved ones to the full extent, because I only heard about it. But those men and boys with their heads bashed in and their eyes knocked out (irretrievably, I’m afraid)—I saw them myself, empathized with them, and in parallel was afraid for my own skin. So here’s to the question of safety:</p> <ol> <li> <p>The minimum gear you need to participate in such a confrontation is a construction helmet, gloves, and something to cover your face. Don’t even bother without this. In general, it’s a good idea to wear a military helmet, a bulletproof vest, and sports knee pads to protect the most vulnerable parts of the body as much as possible, while minimally restricting movement. My construction helmet was hit several times by unknown hostile things: either buckshot or fragments from flash-bang grenades. The impact wasn’t very bad, but I don’t want to know what would have happened to me if I hadn’t been wearing that helmet.</p> </li> <li> <p>As practice has shown—the eyes are very vulnerable and subject to trauma. Accordingly, you need protective goggles, obviously not the usual glass ones. Perhaps the airsoft ones would do, but more durable ones would be better. A direct hit from even a rubber bullet on an unprotected eye is a disaster.</p> </li> <li> <p>Several times a grenade exploded very close by. Only on TV do stun grenades look almost harmless. In fact, when such a grenade explodes, you hear a very loud popping noise that hits your ears very hard. My ears still hurt to this day, and the ringing in them two days later has not fully subsided. Also, the grenades spray shrapnel that can burn and wound. Ear plugs are probably a bad idea, because they create a sense of vacuum, slow your reaction time, dull your ability to orient yourself, and interfere with your ability to communicate with associates. In my opinion, shooting headphones are better suited. I don’t know how long human ears can withstand such blows. But I think that two or three more would have been enough to give me health problems. That’s why it’s worth protecting your ears.</p> </li> <li> <p>It’s important to stick together with your friends. Check in periodically to see how they’re doing, so that if anything happens, no one will be left behind or arrested without anyone noticing.</p> </li> <li> <p>The police make extensive use of tear gas, which yours truly had the displeasure of inhaling on a couple of occasions. Accordingly, a simple gauze bandage is not the best option. A real respirator or, better yet, a gas mask would be more useful. In addition, volunteers walked through the crowd handing out lemon slices, advising people to rub them on the face and on masks. They said that this also helps with the gas.</p> </li> </ol> <p>Soon, an armored vehicle showed up, spraying some purple stuff that smelled like a cleaning liquid out of the unit that was mounted on it. Apparently, it was some kind of fancy gas.</p> <p>After a while, we left Institutskaya street to get some food and change clothes. That was the moment at which the cops went on a general offensive. We were on Europe Square, a stone’s throw from what has now become legendary Grushevsky street. We were going to go to the Ukraine House, which is also located nearby.</p> <p>There was rumbling and shouting. A motley crowd came running from the side of the Grushevsky barricade, followed by a large crowd of guys in camouflage and helmets—self-defense fighters—pursued by an innumerable swarm of Berkut cops, like the hordes of Batu Khan [a Mongol ruler from the early 13th century, the founder of the Golden Horde]. From the outside, it all looked epic, like something out of a war movie.</p> <p>The Berkut began advancing toward Maidan, leaving the Ukraine House actually in their rear, slightly to the side. Although we were nervous and panicked, this gave us the opportunity to evacuate the wounded along with medicine and some other things from the Ukraine House. We had to break the windows on the first floor in order to exit out the back, not through the front door directly to the Berkut. The defense of the House, which had been prepared and fortified for at least two weeks, collapsed instantly, before a battle had even taken place.</p> <p>The breakthrough at Grushevsky took us all by surprise. We took everything we could and together made for St. Michael’s Cathedral. The bells were ringing, just as they had rung a few months before during the first eviction of the Euromaidan.</p> <p>And then the assault on Maidan began, but being left without a helmet, I stayed away from the first line. However, the heat of the blazing barricades and tents reached me as well. By that time, some of the tents on Maidan had already burned to the ground—Berkut had used some of the cocktails seized from the insurgents. You can read more about these events in the news.</p> <p>After catching another police firework, which burned me and the people standing nearby with some crackling “Bengal fire” [pyrotechnics], I decided that it was time to go to the train station. One way or another, I had to leave that day.</p> <figure class="portrait"> <img src="https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2024/02/20/15.jpg" /> </figure> <hr /> <h1 id="further-reading">Further Reading</h1> <ul> <li>On the life of <a href="https://crimethinc.com/2023/05/03/in-memory-of-dmitry-petrov-an-incomplete-biography-and-translation-of-his-work">Dmitry Petrov</a></li> <li>“<a href="https://crimethinc.com/2014/03/17/feature-the-ukrainian-revolution-the-future-of-social-movements">The Ukrainian Revolution and the Future of Social Movements</a>”</li> <li>On the participation of another Russian anti-fascist, <a href="https://discours.io/articles/social/anarchists-on-maidan-protests">Alexei Sutuga</a>, in the Maidan protests</li> </ul> <div class="footnotes" role="doc-endnotes"> <ol> <li id="fn:1" role="doc-endnote"> <p>One of the dead was the anarchist Sergey Kemski, author of “<a href="https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/serhiy-kemsky-do-you-hear-maidan">Do you hear, Maidan?</a>.” Some <a href="https://twitter.com/I_Katchanovski/status/1717738123893817350">evidence</a> suggests that Kemski may have been shot by pro-Maidan nationalists rather than police. <a href="#fnref:1" class="reversefootnote" role="doc-backlink">&#8617;</a></p> </li> <li id="fn:2" role="doc-endnote"> <p>In doing so, Dmitry was following in the footsteps of the Russian anarchist Mikhail Bakunin, who developed his anarchist politics in the course of his efforts to act in solidarity with oppressed Polish people (since much of Poland was a Russian colony in the 19th century). Supporting those who resist Russian imperialism has long been a foundational priority for Russian anti-authoritarians. <a href="#fnref:2" class="reversefootnote" role="doc-backlink">&#8617;</a></p> </li> <li id="fn:7" role="doc-endnote"> <p>It is telling that nationalists aligned themselves with neoliberalism in Ukraine while claiming to oppose neoliberal “globalism” in France and the United States; incoherence and opportunism are practically defining characteristics of nationalism. <a href="#fnref:7" class="reversefootnote" role="doc-backlink">&#8617;</a></p> </li> <li id="fn:3" role="doc-endnote"> <p>Svoboda began in the 1990s as an overtly fascist party involving skinheads, but transitioned to a suit-and-tie strategy to popularize fascism after Oleh Tyahnybok took control of it in 2004. Svoboda won over 10% of the vote in the 2012 parliamentary elections; contrary to fears, however, it lost support after the 2014 elections. <a href="#fnref:3" class="reversefootnote" role="doc-backlink">&#8617;</a></p> </li> <li id="fn:4" role="doc-endnote"> <p>Yulia Tymoshenko was a leader the so-called “Orange Revolution” that took place in Ukraine between November 2004 and January 2005, as a consequence of which she became Prime Minister. She lost the 2010 Ukrainian presidential election runoff to Viktor Yanukovych by 3.5 percentage points. The Yanukovych administration imprisoned her, but she was released in the course of the 2014 revolution. <a href="#fnref:4" class="reversefootnote" role="doc-backlink">&#8617;</a></p> </li> <li id="fn:5" role="doc-endnote"> <p>The meaning of this reference is clear neither to the translators nor the editors. Dmitry may have meant Yanukovych, or <a href="https://sprotyv.org/nikolaj-shhur-kak-kiva-spasal-donetskogo-blatnogo/">Nikolay Shchur</a>, or it may have been a more general reference to thugs from Donetsk. <a href="#fnref:5" class="reversefootnote" role="doc-backlink">&#8617;</a></p> </li> <li id="fn:6" role="doc-endnote"> <p>On May 6, 2012, the “March of Millions” ended with clashes in Bolotnaya Square in Moscow. A number of people were arrested, including the anarchist Alexei Polikhovich and the anti-fascist Alexei Gaskarov. The subsequent <a href="https://crimethinc.com/2019/08/14/the-speech-of-russian-anarchist-alexei-polikhovich-in-moscow-for-which-he-is-currently-imprisoned">court case</a> became associated with the struggle to free Russian political prisoners. <a href="#fnref:6" class="reversefootnote" role="doc-backlink">&#8617;</a></p> </li> </ol> </div> https://crimethinc.com/2024/02/14/notes-on-love 2024-02-14T05:23:36Z 2024-02-27T19:04:18Z Notes on Love On a day often filled with consumerism and shallow romanticism, this manifesto from a comrade in New York City explores love as a foundation for militancy. <figure><img class="u-photo" alt="" src="https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2024/02/15/header.jpg" /></figure> <p>On a day often filled with consumerism and shallow romanticism, this manifesto from a comrade in New York City explores love as a foundation for militancy—a means of both resisting and redeeming.</p> <hr /> <h1 id="notes-on-love">Notes on Love</h1> <p><em>by Ferdinand</em></p> <p><em>for <a href="https://poetryfieldschool.com/leijia_scholarship/">Leija</a></em></p> <figure class=""> <img src="https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2024/02/15/18.jpg" /> </figure> <p>Love is the only reason to be alive.</p> <p>At a point in my life, I realized that letting myself be controlled by my fear of intimacy was counterrevolutionary. The individualizing urge to be aloof is a symptom of this fucked up world that wishes to isolate us from each other. If my politics aren’t informed by my love for my comrades, my planet, my friends, and myself,</p> <p>what is the point?</p> <hr /> <p>The most radical thing one can do in this life is to love.<br /> To be vulnerable.<br /> To give one’s heart to another and to trust that they will be gentle with it.<br /> It’s a terrifying prospect to be seen. To be known.<br /> What if they reject me?<br /> What if I’m not good enough? Not smart enough?<br /> I say the wrong thing? Do the wrong thing? What if I am not enough?</p> <hr /> <p>This world urges us to be alone. When we are isolated, we are less powerful.</p> <p>Divide and conquer.</p> <hr /> <p>How do we fight back against a world that aims to tear us apart? A world that wants us to see ourselves merely as individuals, with no bonds that tie us to each other and no common stake in the fate of those around us. They give us algorithms that show us countless options for potential lovers, turning each one into a commodity.</p> <p>Swipe right to fill the void. A string of endless hookups delivered right to your door as easy as ordering pizza. Human bodies are made into objects for consumption.</p> <p>It’s never been easier to meet someone. The world has never been so lonely.</p> <figure class=""> <img src="https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2024/02/15/15.jpg" /> </figure> <p>How can we move with love in a world that tells us to be ashamed of it? They tell us it is better to be alone—we are sold ideas of individualism that have nothing to do with autonomy. They sell us self-help books with mantras about focusing on ourselves when things get tough.</p> <p>“If you don’t love yourself,<br /> how can you love anyone else?”</p> <p>But loving others is how we truly learn to love ourselves.</p> <figure class=""> <img src="https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2024/02/15/14.jpg" /> </figure> <p>Somehow, we were sold the lie that healing oneself is something that has to be done in isolation. It can’t be collaborative, and it can’t be achieved communally.</p> <p>You have to do it on your own.</p> <p>This is bullshit.</p> <hr /> <p>The truth is, we need each other.</p> <p>No one has to go through this life alone, and no one has to heal alone. We heal ourselves and each other by fully dedicating ourselves to love.</p> <p>We can heal this world through love<br /> because love is an attack.</p> <figure class=""> <img src="https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2024/02/15/12.jpg" /> </figure> <p>In ancient Thebes, the Sacred Band was an elite battalion of soldiers composed of 150 pairs of male lovers. Due to their bonds, or as Polyaenus described it, “devoted to each other by mutual obligations of love,” these warriors would fight more valiantly to protect their lovers. I think of these lover-soldiers and what can be learned from their commitment to each other. How their love made them more militant.</p> <p>Love is a tactic for warfare.</p> <figure class=""> <img src="https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2024/02/15/11.jpg" /> </figure> <p>To me, love is a clenched fist.<br /> A brick through a window.<br /> The thing we are fighting for<br /> and the method by which we will win.</p> <hr /> <p>Why do we want a better world if not for the sake of love? When our struggle is motivated by love, the stakes are significantly higher. The fight hits home because we are fighting not only for our own lives but for the lives and futures of those we love.</p> <p>A future that our children will inherit, of which our ancestors were robbed. We fight for a future in which our lovers, comrades, and friends can live the good life.</p> <figure class=""> <img src="https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2024/02/15/9.jpg" /> </figure> <p>Whether we are having children, caring for our elderly, or forming couples, throuples, polycules, platonic life-bonds, or any other way of imagining human intimacy, when we engage with other humans it is the foundation for a militancy that can survive burnout and depression.</p> <p>These mutual bonds give us the strength to go on when the fight feels hopeless.</p> <figure class=""> <img src="https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2024/02/15/8.jpg" /> </figure> <p>Our survival depends on each other and our fates are tied together.</p> <p>You don’t have to go through this world alone.</p> <p>I’m here, I promise.</p> <hr /> <p>We live on a paradise of a planet that we have wrecked beyond all reason because we saw ourselves as somehow separate from the rest of the natural world.</p> <p>I want to escape the shackles of civilization and accept my place as part of nature.</p> <p>To love is to be human. Our longing for it is primal. Human beings are animals, and we are social animals. We are evolved to need each other, live communally, and care for each other. The desire to love and be loved is in our bones.</p> <figure class=""> <img src="https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2024/02/15/6.jpg" /> </figure> <hr /> <p>Love is the axis on which<br /> my world spins.<br /> The thing I yearn for above all else. The thing I’ve run from all my life.<br /> How can I confront the terror<br /> of being loved?<br /> I am fighting against this world. I am fighting for this world.<br /> Please have<br /> my back.</p> <hr /> <p>There is a cynical tendency to view love as trivial.</p> <p>We think of hippie slogans, “All You Need Is Love.”</p> <p>We conceptualize love as some invisible force that will save us from this cruel world that seeks to destroy, if only we can somehow believe in it.</p> <p>But love is a weapon. When I let myself experience intimacy with other human beings, that is when I am most human. That is when I sharpen love’s blade.</p> <figure class=""> <img src="https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2024/02/15/4.jpg" /> </figure> <p>Fear is the enemy of love. When I let fear stop me from loving, I become my own enemy. Self-sabotage. Too many times, my fear of rejection has caused me to turn away from love. My tendency towards being aloof only left me feeling isolated and empty. I want to give myself more completely to my lovers and my friends. Is this what a life in common is really all about?</p> <p>A life worth living is a life with love.</p> <p>Let us abandon fear. Let us learn to cling to each other, support each other, and fight for each other.</p> <p>Let love be the fire that burns this world. Let love be the seed that grows from its ashes.</p> <figure class=""> <img src="https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2024/02/15/3.jpg" /> </figure> <p>Maybe I am naive and foolish. I’ll be the first to admit I have always been a romantic at heart. But again, love is a tactic for warfare. It is the thing we are fighting for and the method by which we will win.</p> <p>While this world tries to tear us apart,<br /> I am reaching for you.</p> https://crimethinc.com/2024/02/13/human-rights-discourse-has-failed-to-stop-the-genocide-in-gaza-an-anarchist-from-jaffa-on-the-necessity-of-anti-colonial-strategies-for-liberation 2024-02-13T03:34:42Z 2024-03-14T05:39:20Z Human Rights Discourse Has Failed to Stop the Genocide in Gaza : An Anarchist from Jaffa on the Necessity of Anti-Colonial Strategies for Liberation An anarchist from Jaffa explains why we should not look to international institutions to put a stop to the genocide in Gaza. <figure><img class="u-photo" alt="" src="https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2024/02/13/header.jpg" /></figure> <p>Four months into the assault on Gaza, the Israeli military has forced over a million refugees to the edge of the Egyptian border and is now bombing them while <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/2/11/what-is-happening-in-gazas-rafah-as-israel-threatens-to-attack">threatening</a> to mount a ground assault against them. In the following text, <a href="https://crimethinc.com/2023/10/08/a-nuclear-superpower-and-a-dispossessed-people-an-anarchist-from-jaffa-on-the-violence-in-palestine-and-israeli-repression">Jonathan Pollak</a>, a longtime participant in <a href="https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/uri-gordon-and-ohal-grietzer-anarchists-against-the-wall">Anarchists Against the Wall</a> and other anti-colonial solidarity efforts, explains why we should not look to international institutions or protest movements within Israeli society to put a stop to the genocide in Gaza and calls on ordinary people to <a href="https://crimethinc.com/2023/11/03/strategizing-for-palestinian-solidarity-expanding-the-toolkit-from-demands-to-direct-action-1">take action</a>.</p> <p>A shorter version of this text was rejected by the liberal Israeli platform <em>Haaretz</em>—an indication of the diminishing space for dissent in Palestine and within Israeli society.</p> <hr /> <h1 id="human-rights-discourse-has-failed-to-stop-the-genocide-in-gaza">Human Rights Discourse Has Failed to Stop the Genocide in Gaza</h1> <p>We are now more than 120 days into the unprecedented Israeli assault on Gaza. Its horrific repercussions and our inability to bring it to an end should compel us to reevaluate our perspective on power, our understanding of it, and, most significantly, what we have to do to fight it.</p> <p>Amid the spilled blood, the endless days of death and destruction, excruciating dearth, starvation, thirst, and despair, the ceaseless nights of fire and brimstone and <a href="https://amnesty.ca/human-rights-news/israel-opt-identifying-the-israeli-armys-use-of-white-phosphorus-in-gaza/">white phosphors</a> raining indiscriminately from the sky, we must grapple with the bare ugly facts of reality and reshape our strategies.</p> <p>The officially reported fatalities—in addition to the many Palestinians who remain buried under the rubble and aren’t yet included in the official count—already amount to the annihilation of nearly 1.5% of all human life in the Gaza Strip. As Israel escalates its attacks on Rafah, it seems that there is no end in sight. Soon, the lives of one in every fifty people in Gaza will have been extinguished.</p> <figure class=""> <img src="https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2024/02/13/3.jpg" /> <figcaption> <p>The consequences of Israeli airstrikes on Rafah this week.</p> </figcaption> </figure> <p>The Israeli military is inflicting an unprecedented toll of suffering and death on the 2.3 million people of Gaza, surpassing anything ever witnessed in Palestine—or elsewhere <a href="https://www.oxfam.org/en/press-releases/daily-death-rate-gaza-higher-any-other-major-21st-century-conflict-oxfam">during the 21st century</a>. Yet these staggering figures have not penetrated the thick layers of dissociation and disconnect that characterize Israeli society as well as Israel’s Western allies. If anything, the reduction of this tragedy to statistics seems to hinder rather than enhance our understanding. It presents a whole that obscures the specifics: the figures conceal the personhood of the countless individuals who have died painful, particular deaths.</p> <p>At the same time, the unfathomable scale of the massacre in Gaza makes it impossible to comprehend through the stories of individual victims. Journalists, street cleaners, poets, homemakers, construction workers, mothers, doctors, and children, a multitude too vast to be narrated. We are left with faceless anonymous figures. Among them are more than <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/longform/2023/10/9/israel-hamas-war-in-maps-and-charts-live-tracker">12,000</a> children. Probably a lot more.</p> <p>Please pause and say this aloud, word by word: over twelve thousand children. Killed. Is there a way for us to take this in and move beyond the realm of statistics to grasp the horrific reality?</p> <p>The cold blunt numbers also veil <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/palestinians/2024-01-01/ty-article-magazine/.premium/israels-bombs-are-wiping-out-entire-palestinian-families-in-gaza/0000018c-c081-d3e0-abac-d8a9d4300000">hundreds of obliterated families</a>, many of them completely erased—sometimes three, even four generations, wiped off the face of the earth.</p> <p>Overshadowed by these figures are more than 67,000 people who have been injured, thousands of whom will remain paralyzed for the rest of their lives. The medical system in Gaza has been almost completely destroyed; life-saving amputations are being carried out without anesthetics. The extent to which infrastructure in Gaza has been destroyed <a href="https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/gaza-destruction-bombing-israel-aa528542">surpasses the Dresden bombings</a> at the end of the Second World War. Nearly two million people—roughly 85% of the population of the Gaza Strip—have been displaced, their lives shattered by Israeli bombings as they shelter in the dangerously overcrowded south of the Strip, which the Israeli government falsely pronounced “safe,” yet continues to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/21/world/middleeast/israel-gaza-bomb-investigation.html">pummel</a> with hundreds of 2000-pound bombs. The <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/21/world/middleeast/israel-gaza-bomb-investigation.html">hunger in Gaza</a>, which was created by <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/2012-10-17/ty-article/.premium/israels-gaza-quota-2-279-calories-a-day/0000017f-e0f2-d7b2-a77f-e3f755550000">Israeli state policy</a> even before the war, is so severe that it amounts to famine. In their despair, people have resorted to eating fodder, but now even that is running out.</p> <p>About a month ago, an acquaintance of mine who fled to Rafah from Gaza City after his home there was bombed told me that he and his family had already been forced to move from one temporary refuge to another <em>six different times</em> in their attempts to escape from the bombs. In despair, he said, “There is no food, no water, nowhere to sleep. We are constantly thirsty, hungry, and wet. I’ve already had to dig my children out from under the rubble twice—once in Gaza and once here in Rafah.”</p> <figure class=""> <img src="https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2024/02/13/4.jpg" /> <figcaption> <p>In December 2023, the Israeli military designated Al-Mawasi as one of the only “safe zones” in the Gaza Strip. Hundreds of thousands of refugees fled there, finding only a strip of <a href="https://www.vox.com/world-politics/2023/12/6/23990868/gaza-humanitarian-crisis-evacuate-safe-zones">barren land</a> without food, water, or sanitation. Now the Israeli military is <a href="https://forward.com/opinion/581628/rafah-gaza-israeli-assault-humanitarian-crisis/">attacking</a> the so-called “safe zones,” too. This photograph shows the refugee camp on February 9, 2024.</p> </figcaption> </figure> <p>These rivers of blood must breach the walls of our apathy. If only time could stop long enough for all of us to process our grief. But it will not. It continues passing as more bombs fall on Gaza.</p> <p>Decades of injustice have paved the way for this. Some 75 years have passed since the Nakba—75 years of Israel’s settler-colonialism—yet its defenders continue to deny the facts. Even after the the International Court of Justice (ICJ) asserted that there is indeed cause to fear that genocide is being committed in Gaza, the US and many of Israel’s other Western allies have effectively remained silent.</p> <p>Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/netanyahu-israel-committed-international-law-will-defend-itself-2024-01-26/">called</a> the court’s mere willingness to discuss the case “a disgrace that will not be erased for generations.” Indeed, the ruling is a disgrace. Despite everything being laid bare in plain sight, the court did not order Israel to cease fire. This is a disgrace to the court itself and to the very idea that international law is supposed to protect the lives and rights of those being crushed by the military force of nations.</p> <p>It will undoubtedly be said that the law, by nature, is meticulous and that it considers the forest not as a whole but as individual trees. To that, we must answer that reality, facts, common sense must be above the law, not beneath it. Israel dedicates considerable resources to a legalism of the battlefield, intended to give cover to its murderous acts. This approach involves carving reality into thin slices of independently legally-approved observations and actions. A military target was present in high-rise X, justifying the deaths of over two dozen uninvolved civilians; apartment tower Y was the home of a Hamas-employed firefighter, legitimizing, according to the principle of proportionality, the decision to wipe out three neighboring families. But this practice cannot turn genocidal water into legitimate wine. This is legal gaslighting that shreds reality to pieces in order to conceal a pattern of indiscriminate mass murder.</p> <p>If the slaughter of 1.5% of the population in four months is not genocide; if Israel’s acts are not deemed grievous enough for the court to order it to immediately stop the killing, not even in light of open incitement to exterminate Palestinians by prominent Israeli <a href="http://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/defense-minister-announces-complete-siege-of-gaza-no-power-food-or-fuel/">politicians</a> and members of <a href="https://www.aa.com.tr/en/middle-east/israeli-journalist-says-army-should-have-killed-100-000-palestinians-in-gaza/3089253">the press</a>, not to mention Israel’s <a href="https://twitter.com/Sprinter99800/status/1713064886027063584">president</a> and <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/11/07/1211133201/netanyahus-references-to-violent-biblical-passages-raise-alarm-among-critics">Prime Minister</a>; when lack of punishment for such incitements and such acts is accepted rather than branded as genocide in the simplest of terms—then the words we use to describe reality have lost all meaning and we are in dire need of new language beyond the confines of legalese.</p> <p>Leaving the butcher’s knife in the butcher’s hand—leaving Israel unhindered, unimpeded—means letting the slaughter in Gaza continue. This is the absolute ongoing failure of international law and the institutions entrusted with keeping it.</p> <p>This failure passes on the responsibility of forcing an end to the ongoing catastrophe, so that it falls on the shoulders of civil society. This ought to compel us to move beyond the empty liberal paradigms of human rights, which have replaced liberation as the dominant discourse in leftist politics.</p> <figure class=""> <img src="https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2024/02/13/2.jpg" /> <figcaption> <p>The consequences of an Israeli attack on al-Zawaida refugee camp on February 7, 2023.</p> </figcaption> </figure> <h1 id="the-path-forward">The Path Forward</h1> <p>The human rights discourse that has hijacked the political left in recent decades has drawn us away from a framework of liberation and effective action. It is now clear that we must track back from liberal thinking in order to reestablish strategies that disarm and deconstruct power. The moral complicity with Israel’s crimes that is represented by the ICJ’s refusal to order an immediate cease fire forces us to do this. It offers a convincing argument that we all need to break with the current failed system.</p> <p>On the other hand, reality will not wait for us to figure things out. We cannot simply take our time and wait to take action until we have developed and popularized new narratives and conceptual frameworks. We have to use whatever means are available to us to act right now.</p> <p>Does the ICJ offer us any tools we can use? the ICJ is considered the highest instance of international law. Although it has no independent enforcement mechanisms aside from the United Nations Security Council, its rulings and case law are considered the bedrock of international law jurisprudence, and they are often incorporated into the rulings of national courts on these matters. Despite having ordered very few measures against Israel or the ongoing genocide being carried out, the court did determine that there is considerable cause to believe that genocide is taking place.</p> <p>Because the court did not take any real measures against Israel, it should be evident that the responsibility to act falls upon us and our movements. Fortunately, the ruling might also give us some tools to use in the here and now while we are developing new frameworks of liberation. One such example is a recent <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/feb/01/genocide-gaza-israel-california-court">lawsuit at a California federal court</a> aimed at ordering the US administration to halt military support to Israel. The case was dismissed on the grounds that US foreign policy is outside the court’s jurisdiction, but it did determine that Israel is plausibly committing genocide in Gaza on the basis of the ICJ ruling.</p> <p>The legal case that governments must refrain from complicity in genocide is not unsubstantiated in US law, as well as in many other countries. A Dutch court <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/2/12/court-orders-netherlands-to-halt-delivery-of-fighter-jet-parts-to-israel">recently ordered</a> the government of the Netherlands to halt the delivery of parts for F-35 fighter jets that Israel is using to bombard the Gaza Strip. It might be plausible now to force more governments to impose arms embargos, sanctions, or other measures through national courts.</p> <p>However, such strategies still reduce us to relying on so-called experts; they will not help us build movements. The genocide will not be stopped from within Israeli society. Pressure to do so must come from outside. It is now time for direct action and bottom-up efforts, like community-driven boycotts on Israeli goods, vendors who trade in them, Israeli cultural and propaganda exports, and anything else that feeds into the global boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement. The <a href="https://crimethinc.com/2023/11/10/shutting-down-the-port-of-tacoma-reflections-from-the-salish-sea">blockading of the port of Tacoma</a> or the <a href="https://jacobin.com/2023/11/dockworkers-port-blockade-israeli-arms-solidarity-union-activism-gaza-war">actions of dock workers around the world</a> who refuse to load Israeli ships and cargo and transport arms to Israel are examples of how we might be able to move forward, building towards a proactive grassroots movement.</p> <figure class=""> <img src="https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2024/02/13/6.jpg" /> <figcaption> <p>Demonstrators <a href="https://twitter.com/Workers4Pal/status/1732681353240486123">blockading</a> a factory that makes parts for the F-35s that the Israeli military has been using in its assault on Gaza.</p> </figcaption> </figure> <p>We must do everything within our power to stop the genocide that is taking place now, but it is important that we approach doing so as a step towards promoting Palestinian liberation and the dismantling of Israeli settler-colonialism. The portrayal of Palestinians as little more than victims at the mercy of Israeli repression is sometimes well intentioned, but it erases their personhood and agency. While we strive to bring Israel’s war machine to a halt, we must articulate that this is part of the struggle to end Israeli colonialism, and center Palestinians as the protagonists of that story.</p> <h1 id="the-roots-of-the-problem">The Roots of the Problem</h1> <p>Since before the establishment of the Israeli state, Israel has been a racist, colonialist society, premised on the notion that Israelis are fundamentally superior to Palestinians. This is the mainstream of Israeli political thought on both its right and so-called left wings. This is the thinking that motivated the mass dispossession of Palestinians that preceded the formation of the state, the ethnic cleansing of the Nakba in 1948, and various forms of apartheid and military rule ever since. In fact, there has only been one year in the history of Israel—1966—in which it did not impose a regime of military dictatorship over at least some of its Palestinian population.</p> <p>Since long before the current assault on Gaza, the day-to-day reality of Palestinian existence under Israeli rule has been a continuous, ongoing terror in the midst of violence and uncertainty. Being Palestinian means passing through a checkpoint not knowing if you’ll be pulled out and arrested; it means settler mob violence; it means being thrown in jail under administrative detention, not knowing what for or for how long; it means a military raid in the middle of the night. It is all these things and worse, day after day, across a lifetime, across generations. One of the many things that happened on October 7 was that for a brief time, Israelis, too, as a society, experienced that kind of existential terror, that unsettling uncertainty and lack of security.</p> <p>The events of October 7 have had such an impact in Israeli society that even today, most Israelis continue to center themselves as the chief victims in the narrative. One effect of this is the Israeli obsession with contextualizing the genocide in Gaza in relation to the violence on October 7. A common complaint about the ICJ decision among Israelis is that the court did not mention October 7 in its decision (in fact, it did mention it). At the same time, this demand for context is intended to suppress the larger context. Many people, including on the so-called left, express outrage when the current situation is put in the context of the Nakba, the 1967 occupation, or the ongoing siege. According to this upside-down logic, providing that context is perceived as genocidal against Israelis.</p> <figure class=""> <img src="https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2024/02/13/5.jpg" /> <figcaption> <p>Palestinian doctors <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2024/1/25/medicine-in-gaza-a-doctors-guide-to-treating-gazas-sick-and-wounded">desperately attempting</a> to save the lives of Palestinians, including children, injured in an Israeli attack.</p> </figcaption> </figure> <p>Israeli racism was prevalent before, but since October 7, undisguised genocidal discourse and open calls for actual genocide have become the norm. Within Israeli society, there is no movement of any real significance against the genocide. The protest movements that do exist are of negligible size and influence, or are concerned mostly with demanding a hostage swap deal, or are focused on internal Israeli issues—remnants of the <a href="https://crimethinc.com/2023/03/27/a-coup-detat-in-israel-the-bitter-harvest-of-colonialism">pro-judiciary movement</a> from before October 7.</p> <p>The tiny isolated islands of resistance to the assault on Gaza and to the broader aspects of Israeli rule are so small that they should be understood as a rounding error, not a real force. The idea that a movement against colonialism and for Palestinian liberation exists within Israeli society is an illusion. To play a role in carving a path towards a future of real freedom, those who come from within this settler society will have to reject Israeli colonialism root and branch. We must bear in mind that as much as we might wish to be part of the solution, we will inherently remain part of the problem, as well.</p> <p>In approaching the post-genocide future, we must ask how egalitarian ideas will survive in a reality ravaged by war, death, and destruction. It is not clear how we can envision and create a future that can transcend the trauma of the recent past, especially considering that though ruin and violence might decrease once the assault has stopped, Israeli repression will continue.</p> <p>Nothing about the post-genocide future is clear yet, including what turns the Palestinian movement for liberation will take. That is for Palestinians alone to decide. What is obvious—and should have been clear long before this—is that those who oppose colonialism must not bask in the privileges that it bestows. The exact details of the path towards liberation are uncertain, but it is undeniable that those who want to help pave it can only play a part in doing so within the Palestinian movement. The responsibility of finding ways to do so, to transgress the boundaries of forced national identity that are in place precisely to prevent that, falls upon those who wish to support Palestinians and break out of the confines of colonialism.</p> <hr /> <figure class=""> <img src="https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2024/02/13/1.jpg" /> </figure> https://crimethinc.com/2024/02/08/theres-no-such-thing-as-a-free-helicopter-ride-on-the-death-of-sebastian-pinera 2024-02-08T04:44:20Z 2024-02-09T09:33:06Z There's No Such Thing as a Free Helicopter Ride : On the Death of Sebastián Piñera The fact that Sebastián Piñera died in a helicopter is an case of poetic justice. We present a statement from our comrades in Chile on this occasion. <figure><img class="u-photo" alt="" src="https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2024/02/08/header-1.jpg" /></figure> <p>On February 6, 2024, the billionaire Sebastián Piñera died in a helicopter crash. His policies while president of Chile contributed to the desperation that ultimately provoked the uprising of 2019.</p> <p>As Milton Friedman would have put it, “There’s no such thing as a free helicopter ride!”<sup id="fnref:1" role="doc-noteref"><a href="#fn:1" class="footnote" rel="footnote">1</a></sup></p> <p>Permit us to explore the significance of this historic reckoning.</p> <hr /> <figure class=""> <img src="https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2024/02/08/4.jpg" /> <figcaption> <p>“Adios, Sebastián—hell is yours.” People <a href="https://twitter.com/PiensaPrensa/status/1755002783181205632">celebrate</a> the death of Sebastián Piñera in in Plaza Dignidad on February 6, 2024.</p> </figcaption> </figure> <p>That Sebastián Piñera should die <strong><em>in a helicopter</em></strong> is a case of unsurpassable poetic justice.</p> <p>“Free helicopter rides” has long been a <a href="https://theintercept.com/2021/02/04/pinochet-far-right-hoppean-snake/">meme</a> among fascists inspired by the extrajudicial murders of leftists that the Argentine and Chilean governments carried out. The personal helicopter pilot of Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet <a href="https://www.emol.com/noticias/todas/2001/01/11/42929/ex-piloto-de-pinochet-reconocio-que-lanzo-cuerpos-al-mar.html">openly admitted</a> that he repeatedly murdered prisoners by throwing them into the ocean from his helicopter. As head of state, Piñera inherited and perpetuated Pinochet’s legacy, forcing capitalism on the Chilean population despite brave and widespread resistance.</p> <p>This is <a href="https://crimethinc.com/2016/08/30/a-fitting-end-the-death-of-john-timoney">not the first time</a> that we have outlived our oppressors—and it will not be the last. Below, we share a statement from our dear comrades in Chile on this historic occasion.</p> <p><em>You can learn about the Chilean uprising of 2019 <a href="https://de.crimethinc.com/2020/10/15/chile-looking-back-on-a-year-of-uprising-what-makes-revolt-spread-and-what-hinders-it">here</a>, or listen to our on-the-ground podcast series from the revolt starting <a href="https://crimethinc.com/podcasts/the-ex-worker/episodes/70">here</a>.</em></p> <hr /> <figure class="portrait"> <img src="https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2024/02/08/3.jpg" /> <figcaption> <p>“The murderer Piñera died.”</p> </figcaption> </figure> <h1 id="on-the-death-of-sebastian-pinera">On the Death of Sebastián Piñera</h1> <blockquote> <p>“We are at war with a powerful, implacable enemy, who bows to nothing and no one, who is ready to use violence and crime without limit.”</p> <p>-Sebastian Piñera - October 21, 2019</p> </blockquote> <blockquote> <p>“We aren’t at war, we’re united!”</p> <p>-Masked rioters, pensioners, state orphanage escapees, students, nurses, looters, self-organized neighborhoods, everyone—every day after that until the onset of COVID-19.</p> </blockquote> <p>On February 6, 2024, the ex-president of Chile, Sebastián Echenique Piñera, died in a helicopter accident. Beyond being a ruler of the territory dominated by the Chilean state, Piñera was also an economist and businessman. He was the owner of LAN airlines and a number of media channels and outlets.</p> <p>Piñera was the first and only unabashedly right-wing head of state since the end of Pinochet’s military dictatorship, which was shown in the priorities of his economic and social policies: above all, the maintenance of the capitalist system, frequently by means of severe repression. During his first presidency (2010-2014), Piñera’s government adopted new policies that were intended to crush the growing wave of street demonstrations<sup id="fnref:2" role="doc-noteref"><a href="#fn:2" class="footnote" rel="footnote">2</a></sup>—whether it was environmentalists or feminists or students in the streets. Piñera did not shy away from imprisoning subversive rebels, especially Mapuche and anarchist revolutionaries willing to act outside of the law that he swore to uphold.</p> <p>Piñera’s second presidency (2018-2022) started much like the first, but was distinguished by the largest street conflicts Chile had seen in 50 years. At its apex, millions of people took to the streets in revolt, each against whichever manifestation of the general condition of exploitation and oppression under the ruling class and authoritarianism they considered most important. The protests began on October 18, 2019 and continued for months all across the country. The mercenaries at Piñera’s command reacted to the revolt by jailing thousands of people, damaging hundreds of eyes, and murdering demonstrators.</p> <p>According to figures from organizations like Amnesty International, state security forces physically, psychologically, or sexually harmed more than 8000 people during the 2019-2020 period. Included among those figures are more than 400 cases of eye damage resulting from police projectiles. Some people lost both eyes.</p> <p>As anti-authoritarians, we should not be surprised that the state uses such violence to defend the precious property of those in power, since the government—any government—exists primarily to maintain domination. This domination is imposed by flesh-and-blood human beings, human beings who command and other human beings who obey. Sebastián Piñera was one of these human beings. On October 18, 2019, he ordered troops to open fire against those who set the streets of Santiago alight. He declared war on all who joined the protest—whether by raising their voices, raising their fists, or raising barricades.</p> <p>We will not forget or forgive. The death of someone whose life meant misery for millions simply makes us smile.</p> <p>For the dead, the mutilated, the incarcerated, the raped, and the suicided of the revolt, we will stomp out one more <em>Chinchinera</em> on Piñera’s grave.</p> <hr /> <figure class=""> <img src="https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2024/02/08/1.jpg" /> </figure> <figure class="portrait"> <img src="https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2024/02/08/5.jpg" /> </figure> <hr /> <figure class="portrait"> <img src="https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2024/02/08/2.jpg" /> <figcaption> <p>This poster from the 2019 revolt called on the oppressed to celebrate then-president Piñera’s birthday by rioting in the streets. Though the depiction of the president is admittedly juvenile, it may in fact be an accurate representation of Piñera in his last moments.</p> </figcaption> </figure> <div class="footnotes" role="doc-endnotes"> <ol> <li id="fn:1" role="doc-endnote"> <p>Milton Friedman was a zealous advocate of free-market capitalism who published a book titled <em>There’s No Such Thing as a Free Lunch.</em> As soon as Augusto Pinochet established a US-backed dictatorship in Chile, several Chileans who had studied under him in Chicago—the so-called <a href="https://crimethinc.com/videos/the-chicago-conspiracy">Chicago Boys</a>—took influential positions within the dictatorship, imposing deleterious deregulation and privatization on the Chilean population at the end of a gun. <a href="#fnref:1" class="reversefootnote" role="doc-backlink">&#8617;</a></p> </li> <li id="fn:2" role="doc-endnote"> <p>While in many places around the world, the so-called Arab Spring and the various iterations of the Occupy movement dominate the popular memory of 2011 as a wild year for revolt, Chile also had a months-long period of rebellion, spilling over from university students who took over their institutions in protest of privatized education and generalizing into mass street action with participation from across society. <a href="#fnref:2" class="reversefootnote" role="doc-backlink">&#8617;</a></p> </li> </ol> </div>